SINGLES AND DOUBLES
Well, it looks like original Hollywood shows crafted for the internet, may have some opportunity for success, if Michael Eisner's recent experience is any indication. Mediaweek reports that:
"Less than halfway through its 80-day run, Prom Queen, the daily teen-aimed online soap opera launched by Michael Eisner’s new production firm, is showing signs of becoming a modest hit, if short of an Internet sensation thus far.
According to Vuguru, the Eisner-backed Web production firm that is churning out eighty 90-second episodes of Prom Queen in as many days, the short-form series is averaging roughly 200,000 views a day, and has accumulated more than 5.2 million views since its April 2 debut.
While relevant benchmarks are hard to come buy in this uncharted space, the show’s daily audience is equivalent to a low-rated cable series"
So there we have it, good solid, unspectacular, but very respectable results, especially for the relative costs of producing something like this for the internet vs. for a cable series.
The show is being distributed through various internet outlets, including MySpace.
The question is what happens when "TV" shows produced for the internet go from being a mere novelty, to everyday, mainstream fare. And that day is not that far away.
How much more fragmented do audiences and metrics, for mainstream entertainment really become? And that's before considering that each of the 13 characters on this one program alone, have their own MySpace page to track and keep up with? Not to mention there's no mini-video shows OFF those pages for each of those characters, yet.
Do the aggregate revenues for the industry stay the same, decline, or actually grow in the long-term?
What happens to the concept of "ratings" for entertainment shows in a world where broadcast TV and cable morph into "internet TV"?
For example, should a sentence like the following, from the MySpace journal page one of the show's characters, Michele, be deemed appropriate or inappropriate for teen audiences:
"Sunday, April 22, 2007
nite with myy grrrrlz
so i coudnt go dress shoppping cuz my stupid dad is an assshole but then at nite we partyd like rokstars anyway! ;) i told u tha vidz r hottt! thnx danica for puttin this 2gether!"
Not to mention the grammar education our teens are getting in this new medium?
And what about the attitude of this character toward her Dad? It makes the whole Alec Baldwin-daughter thing more understandable, but that's the subject for another post.
And will we finally be able to stop complaining about mainstream entertainment (including "news") being produced to cater only to the lowest common denominator?
Or is the right answer to that question, "you ain't seen nothing yet"?
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