The Madison Avenue Journal strives to be The New Yorker of advertising by providing online social commentary and daily news for that industry. Geared towards high level ad execs, it's most interested in understanding how contemporary culture intersects with the marketing business. "We saw this huge abyss between the culture of traditional agencies and new media agencies," says Managing Editor Tim McHale. "And we thought our view was unique because we saw threads of similarity in both." And so, when AMC premiered a drama about 1960s Madison Avenue advertising execs, well, let's just say their attention was piqued.

Throughout the show's first season, Madison Avenue Journal became a veritable treasure trove of Mad Men coverage with episodic reviews, polls, analyses, and even a self-established Mad Men Facebook group. "There's something so deliciously low about Madison Avenue, and more specifically Mad Men. To outsiders, people think MadAve types are con artists," McHale says. "However, the insider view is that they are 'smoothies' due to their ability to get clients to spend money on advertising and get people to buy products. And I think everyone who watched the series felt like a voyeur into that world."

"Mad Men is a 'must watch' show for me," says publisher Wendy McHale (Tim's wife). "Everyone is completely believable and the performances are nicely nuanced. There are no caricatures." Wendy began her coverage of the show by squaring off against the Journal's culture editor, Kurt Brokaw, who sometimes bucks at certain representations, particularly of women. But even he will admit that Mad Men possesses "a slick, handsome gloss," and notes "how many industry veterans who worked in the same era love it."

McHale reports that traffic on his site spiked on the day of and the day following new episodes, and poll results are consistently, overwhelmingly positive. "When we do polls the day after the show airs there is a great response," Wendy says. "We definitely have plans to cover the second season, and I know our readers are going to expect it. I firmly believe you can't know where you're going in this business unless you know where you've been. The show is really a representation of a lost time in history. Advertising in the 21st century looks nothing like the '60s."

At the same time, says McHale, "I get a gag reflex when I think about the tension and politics of the ad age culture. I like that I can watch Mad Men and see it done well, in an era that happened long before me. But I also enjoy it because, other than the settings, I find humor in the fact that it's the same game over and over again. And I love covering it because it is thematically aligned with the MadAve Journal's raison d'etre in almost every way."