Live from the Web it’s Kevin Pollack! Wait, Live? Why?

Kevin Pollack is a funny guy and a solid actor. Now he is adding talk show host to his resume with his newest venture Chat Show, executive produced by Mahalo.com founder Jason Calacanis.

While the web is flooded with small-scale talk shows hosted by everyone from Andy Dick to Amy Poehler, Kevin Pollack is trying to set his apart with some bold choices that strike me as, well, too bold to succeed in any meaningful way.

First, the show is one hour long. Sure, the amount of time spent watching video online is going up steadily, the average is still just 3 hours a month. It seems unlikely many folks will give a third of their monthly viewing time to Kevin. Second, the show airs via a live stream every Sunday at 5pm. While everything except for sports seems to be moving away from the need for “appointment viewing” Kevin Pollack seems to think he is worth taking off an hour in the middle of a Sunday to watch him chat with Lavar Burton or Felicia Day.

Since it is live, Kevin takes full(ish) advantage of Twitter and other chat to keep a bit of back-n-forth with his audience but this lowers the value of the show in any sort of syndication. If a big part of it is the interaction than a big element is just lost if you don’t catch it live. At the same time, I don’t think the “live” element is exciting enough to draw viewers in for the streaming version.

If his debut is any indication, it is going to be a mighty challenge to build an audience. Pollack average about 1000 viewers.

See it for yourself here.

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