This image was lost some time after publication.

Having a TV network service an entire sex is tricky business. Lifetime "Television for Women" found an identity and audience by dispensing with any pretense of "you go girl" feminism and focusing squarely on trashy, earnest women-in-peril TV movies. Spike TV, the men's network, has yet to find its formula, substituting Defending the Caveman-caliber cliches for actual programming (ex: The Three Stooges, 7 days a week). Realizing that route wasn't working, the network has decided to go back to the drawing board, polling thousands of young males about their TV likes and dislikes. Stunning conclusion: young men tend to identify with anti-heroes.

Spike found that men responded not only to brave and extremely competent leads but to a menagerie of characters with strikingly antisocial tendencies: Dr. Gregory House, a Vicodin-popping physician on Fox's "House"; Michael Scofield on "Prison Break," who is out to help his brother escape from jail; and Vic Mackey, played by Michael Chiklis on "The Shield," a tough-guy cop who won't hesitate to beat a suspect senseless. Tony Soprano is their patron saint, and like Tony, within the confines of their shows, they are all "good guys."

Now that Spike knows the magic bullet to the hearts of their vaginaless viewers lies not in sex, gadgets, or cars, but in grumpy, alpha-male criminal behavior, their programming can practically produce itself: they need simply train their cameras on the real-life exploits of ex-Sopranos cast members, add a rap-metal soundtrack and Lorenzo Lamas V.O., and simply sit back as the coveted 18-39 male Nielsen demographic tumble headlong into their lady-free cable manzone.