Doug Herzog, who oversees Spike TV, Comedy Central and TV Land, will oversee a new division of MTV Networks that markets male-skewing networks and Web sites, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal's Media & Marketing section. The new division, called MTV Entertainment Group, will package MTV Networks' male viewers with the users of male-skewing Web sites like IFilm, a video sharing service, Atom Films, a purveyor of short films and video game sites XFire and GameTrailers. MTV Networks owns all these Web sites.

The story, written by Brooks Barnes and Matthew Karnitschnig, says Viacom hopes the new unit will spur growth at MTV Networks, which for years relied on MTV and Nickelodeon to power much of its growth. More recently, the story says, these networks have lost momentum, while networks under Mr. Herzog's control, in particular, Comedy Central, have been growing strongly. The new division also hopes to make it easier for advertisers to buy ads across all the male-oriented properties, reaching men whether they are in front of the tube or on the Internet.

The effort to package and market male viewers also puts MTV Networks in more direct competition with ESPN. MTV Networks estimates that its male-skewing nets reach more men in total than ESPN and its offshoot networks.

Wall Street Journal Online subscribers can read the full story here.