• by Paul Gough , June 3, 2004

Network television may have slipped a bit in the eyes of the 18- to-34-year-old male, but there are still plenty of other places to find the elusive demographic.

Think video.

That's one of the messages of a panel of media professionals sponsored by Maxim magazine and held Thursday morning at a lower Manhattan hotel. It's not that the men have left television. They've just migrated to the kinds of media that they like, whether it's a men's magazine, video games, or a network like Spike TV.

Albie Hecht, president of Viacom-owned Spike TV, said that most of the shows on broadcast television, even reality, skew more female than male.

"They're not finding what they want on broadcast television," Hecht said.

That's opened up an opportunity for sports networks like ESPN and Outdoor Life Network, as well as Spike TV and other lifestyle or general-interest cable channels, to win with programming aimed at what men like. But the shift in interest of the young male demographic goes beyond television. Rashid Tobaccowala, president of Chicago-based Starcom IP, said that video in all its forms--including broadband--is alive and well.

"We're looking at the video age. It just may not be a television age," Tobaccowala said. "There's nothing wrong with the future of television. There's something wrong with the future of the 30-second commercial."

Hecht said that young men don't mind being marketed to--it just needs to be in the proper environment.