MTV Sells Spike, Comedy Central Package

Advertising Age:MTV is trying to make it easier for advertisers to find elusive young men on TV, by packaging together programs in its network that deliver that audience.

Comedy Central's "South Park" and Spike's "The Ultimate Fighter," which both air at 10 p.m. Wednesday, are collectively sold as a "man's block." The shows' combined ratings account for a big share of the male 18-to-34 demo.

Electronic Arts and other advertisers are now using the Wednesday man block to customize ads. On Nov. 12, EA will run three theatrical trailers for a new video game on Comedy Central. At the same time, over on Spike, EA will air a 60-second ad with a fourth theatrical trailer for the game. Spike is also creating 15-second EA vignettes to run before and after commercial breaks.

Media buyers meet reps, reps meet media buyers.
MTV has seen the demonstrated consumer behaviour, thought about it, and they've responded accordingly to match a media buyer's needs sensibly and realistically.
It's about time this shizz happened. Step out of that boring box and work to make a sale. Deliver to marketers according to their own specific client.

It reminds me of the time I was working on Amex and a media provider came to meet me to discuss their property. The conversation went like this:
Them: So you guys work on Mastercard right?
Me: Are you joking me? Because if you are that's very funny. Really, very good. If not, uh-uh. Not funny.
Them: Oh. Umm. Is it mastercard?
Me: umm...willis?

Oh, and the property was some online/tv/extreme gaming crap that had no resonance or relevance to my audience. But the numbers were great (if you lived in a vacuum).

Moral of the story is, reps- do the research. Find out who the client is before you go to the meeting. Not too much to ask. Furthermore, come to the meeting with a plausible specific solution for that client, just like MTV is with their manny-pack. Then you might get some traction and maybe a bit of excitement.