Until now, most major production studios looked at the online arena as a threat or a nuisance or, at best, a new channel to deliver content previously produced for the television. That changed today.
Warner Bros. is announcing that they will be unveiling 24 new productions that will specifically be digitally created and shown via the web. We’ll be able to see episodic ‘web shows’ (I’m not going to call it television shows), movie shorts, games, and cartoons.
What is especially different about this effort is that WB is moving forward on this without advertiser commitments – yet. Most studios have refused to take the risk on something like this without getting at least several companies willing to fork over some money to pay for it via some type of ad placement. Evidently, Warner Bros. thinks that viewer habits are changing rapidly enought that they’ll spark enough interst to get the viewers that will attract advertisers that will bring in the money that will pay for the shows.
Now the reality is that whatever they create has to show quality. It has to be entertaining. Otherwise it won’t fly. But the real change here is that Warner Bros. is forging ahead in this new arena without having secured the participation and money of those advertisers. The investment is reportedly just under three million, so it’s not as if they’re putting a great deal of cash for this. But they also aren’t doing it having the opportunity of examing best practices.
We’ll get to see shows such as a puppet show that’s going to feature a group of apes acting as detectives (The Simian Undercover Detective Squad), a soccer mom/talk show host who apparently broadcasts her show from her car (the Jeannie Tate Show), and – keeping in line with TV studios producing shows about people like themselves – an ongoing story about two guys that run a digital studio and are trying to figure out how to maintain their success (Viral).
It will remain to be seen what Warner Bros. and each show does AFTER they debut. Will they use social media and other web applications to allow fans of shows to develop communities? Will they seek out content contributions from their audience? Will the audience create content anyway? We can only wait and see.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
The Jeannie Tate show that I saw on YouTube is hilarious – better than half the stuff on TV.
The great thing about the internet is that people with talent, who don’t have a ton of money – can still make quality productions. They don’t have to move to L.A. They don’t need to get signed to a major label.
Just produce it yourself and see where it goes!!!
Nathania
Any idea as to how the Jeannie Tate show can into being? Did she start if up on her own and someone from Warner Brothers took notice? Or did she have an established inside track?
Point is that the DOES open opportunites for “amateurs”, but I’m wondering if we’ll see an onrush of would be types rush foward with a lot of crap as well.
It surely helps to have a studio behind you. Hell, ask Marie Digby.
Good point!
The “host” is played by Liz Cackowski, a former Saturday Night Live writer and the “star” on the pilot episode is SNL cast member Bill Hader. So they have some industry clout. Whether or not it was an indie project at first or has Marie Digby-type backing, I’m not sure.
It was a YouTube editor’s choice, but how those deci$ions are made, I don’t know.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2Iw1uEVaQpA
One more thing to add – is that established TV writer Jane Espenson has told her blog readers that she’s starting to see that online videos are becoming a way for aspiring screenwriters to show their work vs. more traditional methods of submitting spec scripts.
Nathania – thanks for the info!!
And that’s why this should be so cool…because fellow citizen/consumers will be playing a role as to what gets shown…not just industry execs who may have tunnel vision. A lot of TV shows are very similar. Makes me wonder what we could have seen.