NEW YORK CITY - Jason Maltby settles into a padded seat in the upper reaches of the balcony at Carnegie Hall, his right thumb resting in the crease of his left palm. He is peering steeply below to see the Soggy Bottom Boys sing gospel music from the movie Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Only this time, their soulful songs are performed at the behest of CBS, and their lyrics tweak the network's competitors.

It is late May, the kickoff to CBS' entry in the "upfronts" - essentially a weeklong, floating trade convention for the TV industry, in which executives from each network try to promote the shows they will be putting on the air this fall. More than $8 billion will be promised in the next several weeks by advertisers to the six broadcast networks on the basis of these presentations.

NBC holds its "upfront" amid the art deco brilliance of Radio City Music Hall. ABC officials appear at the New Amsterdam Theater, where parent company Disney has staged the immensely popular Broadway version of The Lion King.

Maltby is 35 years old, lean, perhaps a couple of inches shy of 6 feet, with groomed salt-and-pepper hair. He favors suits that are pricey, but not flashy. He smokes cigarettes frequently and works out less than he once did, thanks to the rigors of fatherhood and to those of his current job.

Maltby oversees advertising accounts valued at $750 million for MindShare, a firm that advises companies where to put commercials on the air for their products. He buys broadcast and cable time for Domino's Pizza; IBM; Mattel; Novartis, a major manufacturer of over-the-counter and prescription drugs; and the U.S. Marine Corps, among others. MindShare's other clients include such major advertisers as American Express, Ford, Kodak and Unilever.

He is unquestionably a rising star among ad buyers, a status recently validated by Electronic Media, which named him one of the country's two best in the field. Maltby hasn't attained such recognition by accident. He cuts through all the burlesque of the advertising and entertainment worlds with the speed of a scythe and the clinical precision of a scalpel.

Asked about the decline of ABC, for example, Maltby says, "There are five conglomerates that control 90 percent of what we see on television. I'm not going to cry for any of them."

For the moment, CBS gamely trots out the lead actors of their series, some familiar and some new, to wow its guests: ad buyers such as Maltby, corporate executives and officials from the affiliate stations that broadcast the network's programs. Maltby makes a few observations, noting when the network is stretching the truth, but he does not respond noticeably until CBS President Leslie Moonves introduces an excerpt of what is to be a documentary on the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Maltby excuses himself, then heads to the door.

His older brother Christian, a currency trader for Cantor Fitzgerald who worked at One World Trade Center, was killed in the attacks. From the first day, Jason Maltby has refused to watch any of the footage of the catastrophe that killed his brother, who was so much a part of his daily life that he lived just a mile from Jason's home.

"When that came on, my first instinct as a human being was to look at my fingernails," Maltby says quietly. "I really don't like to see the images of that building falling."

But on most occasions, he says his personal feelings or reactions don't matter. Decisions are made by network executives in their quest for viewers. "It's got nothing to do with you and nothing to do with me," he says more than once. "We're not the target audience."

He's right, of course. It's not about Jason Maltby. It never has been. Broadcast television is increasingly geared to the pursuit of younger and ever more difficult-to-reach American viewers, those, say, in the 18 to 49 age range - especially, when it comes to it, 18 to 34. They are especially hunted because they are especially tough to land. They are easily diverted from TV by edgier cable channels, the Internet, DVDs and video games. Though network programming reaches many millions more people than cable stations, it's so old school. So ancient. So very George Bush the First.

Companies pay Maltby and his bosses at MindShare substantial fees to develop a strategy for their television advertising budgets for them and to guard their money carefully. So, for example, 50 cents of every dollar spent buying a commercial on a program with an audience with a mean age of 50 is considered squandered, as half of the viewers are older than the desired range.

This is precisely why ABC tried desperately to jettison venerable newsman Ted Koppel's Nightline for a late night show with David Letterman, who attracts an audience that is only a few years younger than that of the venerable news program - the average viewer of Koppel is 52.3 years old against 47 for Letterman.

CBS, which maintains a loyal, deep and slightly older average audience overall, hates this argument. So does the AARP - the senior citizens' lobbying group. The logic is based on the idea that young people set the spending agenda for their families; that, as young adults, they have disposable income of their own; that, as young parents, they are about to embark on several decades of spending on major consumer items like cars and houses; and that they are likely to stay loyal to a name brand for decades.

Although Madison Avenue is driven by this school of thought, there are few hard figures to back up it up. Even Maltby doesn't think it makes a whole lot of sense.

"I don't think the world works that way anymore," Maltby says. "I could argue to a client until I'm blue in the face to target 25 to 54 instead of 18 to 34." Older people watch more television than the young. There are more of them than ever, as the Baby Boomers age. And many have real money to spend.

But it doesn't matter. "That's a decision larger than me as a media buyer." As Maltby says, it's not about him.

Except, of course, the industry is all about Jason Maltby, and people like him.

Throughout much of Manhattan this summer, bus stops sport ads for TNN, a cable channel owned by AOL/Time Warner. Its country music format was recently set aside for one with syndicated entertainment shows and outdoors programs. In huge letters, the ads say the channel has attained the desired result: "Bigger. Younger. Richer."

Those three words sum up all that is sought by most advertisers, which desire to pitch their products to the most people, preferably with deep pockets, who are young. And yet the ads are not aimed at that pool of young and rich people. They're aimed at Maltby, his peers and his clients.

Maltby appears to enjoy the challenge of mapping out advertising strategies, and guiding his staff so they can reach the precise people advertisers covet. One of his favorite tools is a software program that allows him to mimic the audience for any show he wants.

So, for instance, the computer analysis may show him how to buy time on a mixture of shows from the WB, ESPN, MTV and BET to reproduce the precise number and demographic of 18- to 49-year-olds who watch NBC's Friends - at a lower price. Is it worth it to purchase an ad on Friends, the country's most popular television program, which also charges the highest rates? Or is it smarter to go through the cumbersome task of placing ads on a variety of cable and less-watched network shows that reach slices of the desired audience that adds up to the same people who watch Friends?

He likes to negotiate from strength with the networks. That involves mastering the ratings estimates, knowing his clients' own instincts, and keeping his cool. He almost never raises his voice, associates say - a rarity in the advertising world. He doesn't particularly care whether one show makes it or another doesn't. He just wants to figure it out ahead of time.

Television critics gasped during ABC's "upfront" when shown excerpts from a show about a man sent back in time to revisit his high school days: the program closely resembled a WB pilot presented several hours earlier. Maltby remained unfazed. You can't tell from the first few episodes, he says, whether either show will win the loyalty of viewers.

At his midtown Manhattan office, painted all in white, Maltby maintains an immaculate desk. There's a picture of Maltby cutting the cake at his wedding with his wife, Betsy, near a silver-plated bowl that Electronic Media engraved to honor him. He keeps a single white pad on which to write notes. Directly above his desk he has pinned a dozen photographs of his children, the tops of the pictures perfectly touching an imaginary line that stretches across the wall.

Amid all the "upfront" network presentations, he prints out grids showing his predictions of the broadcasters' schedules. He is rarely incorrect. He tries to create teams with demographic groups to examine each client's intentions. So he's created seven teams of eight people from his staff, each with a recent college graduate, a young staffer with four years experience, a 10-year veteran and an old hand who's been in the business for 15 years.

Each team serves as a mini-focus group. Team captains meet every Friday to figure out their numbers, night by night, half-hour by half-hour. During the "upfront" presentations, they meet almost daily.

Maltby counsels his staffers to make charts in a format familiar to clients. He tells them not to forget about cable alternatives to the networks, and discounts advertisers' promise for spending on the big broadcasters. The second half of the fall season arrives during the fourth financial quarter of the year, he notes, and executives hungry to meet bottom-line projections scour budgets for flexible spending areas. Advertising often gets cut late in the year, Maltby says.

The team that meets on this Wednesday finds itself in a semi-circle around Maltby's unspectacular office, with a modest view of the Hudson River to the west from its sole window. On a high ledge sits a series of health care products put out by Novartis - Maalox for upset stomachs, Tavis-T, Triaminic, Thera-Flu.

A television and VCR are tucked away on a stand in the corner, so he can screen many new pilots for the fall season. A Simpsons poster on one wall is signed "Yo Jay!" by creator Matt Groening.

"You keep things neat because it makes the office look bigger," Maltby says matter-of-factly.

Maltby came to appreciate order at a young age.

He grew up with his mother and two brothers on a houseboat moored at a Long Island dock after his parents divorced. It was a setting that required some adjustment. He kept only what he felt he absolutely needed, and he kept that rigidly organized - all in pursuit of the illusion of space.

At Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, Maltby studied English and wrote a senior thesis on the role of bawdy humor in the works of the 14th-century writer Geoffrey Chaucer. Jason caught the eye of Betsy, a fellow undergrad who was a year ahead of him, while walking on a main quad in a Grateful Dead T-shirt from a concert that she had also attended. The two started dating during her final year on campus, and they continued seeing each other after graduation.

Though an unwavering liberal, Maltby's first job was with George H.W. Bush's campaign in 1988. He purchased time for commercials boosting the Bush-Quayle ticket on radio stations. His guiding ideology was doing the job right. He soon progressed within the worlds of ad purchasing for less political patrons. After Jason and Betsy married, they settled in New Jersey.

Every morning, Maltby makes the one hour, five-minute commute from the upscale bedroom community of Chatham, N.J. No matter how late he works - he stays at the office until 2 or 3 in the morning during particularly busy stretches - he returns home so he can spend breakfast with his children. Betsy has often urged him to take a hotel room in the city on those nights. He never does. Throughout the 45-minute segment of the commute by train each way, he works, reviewing files, strategies, ad materials.

When Betsy Maltby goes to sleep early, she often comes down to find that the children's toys have been neatly stowed in their places, the magazines carefully stacked. His books are alphabetized, and his shirts all hang in precisely the same direction. He gardens, planting and pruning regularly and with precision. Jason finds it soothing, his wife says.

Away from the office, Maltby unwinds best in the company of his children: Sean, who's 6, Megan, 4, and James, born last October.

For a family that derives an income from television, the Maltbys are cautious about letting their children watch too much of it. Betsy likes to watch ER or Survivor. Jason often calls from work to ask if she has seen a specific ad that he arranged to be broadcast at a specific time.

Jason enjoys watching Survivor with Betsy. Since he typically gets home late, she tapes the show and waits for him to see it - meaning that even this couple sometimes fast-forwards through the ads that he has carefully placed.

Every year, the networks stage their extravagant circuses, with musical reviews, fake documentaries, stand-up comics offering one-liners about the industry - all to snare the attention of people buying the ads.

Broadcast networks still capture the largest single shares of the viewing audience. But their hammer-hold on those viewers slips each year. And the lively presentations have become, in part, annual sleight-of-hand tricks to distract advertisers from the fundamental truth that they are paying more money each year to reach fewer people.

Stars of NBC's hit shows The West Wing, Scrubs and Law & Order participated in elaborate musical numbers, while the network's ad executives took part in a spoof episode of Fear Factor. One executive looks down into what is supposed to be a pit of circling ad sharks and gets a laugh when he refers to Maltby's boss: "Hey, Marc Goldstein! Gimme a call - we'll do lunch!"

Comic Jimmy Kimmel proves to be a rare bright spot for ABC, mocking his new bosses who have tapped him to create a new late night show after Nightline. "This is the grand plan?" he demands of his hiring, turning to the ABC executives. "Are you guys trying to get fired?"

At CBS' party at Tavern on the Green, an upscale restaurant on the west side of Central Park, improbably slender female stars are outfitted in even more improbably slender designer shoes. Young network staffers and ad buyers mill about mirrored rooms and glassed-in pavilions with cocktails, while some corporate executives line up to have their pictures taken with celebrities such as former Miami Dolphin quarterback Dan Marino, now a football announcer, or actress Dana Delaney, who is headlining a new drama.

A CBS executive sidles up to Maltby to distance himself, ever so slightly, from the network president's "upfront" week claim that it was No. 1 in so many categories without caveats. (Those assertions should have required several qualifications to be made with a straight face.) But Maltby, cordial enough, has eyes only for George L. Varjan, the director of media and advertising services for Novartis.

"George is my man," Maltby says, scanning among the various booths placed around the restaurant. "If George is happy, I'm happy."

Varjan, when he's found a few minutes later, is less interested in gawking at famous stars than talking to another advertising executive.

Once he's sure that the pharmaceutical executive is in good hands, Maltby makes plans to head back to Jersey to see his family.

None of this foolishness is about him.

Except, of course, that all of it is.