We Love TV on the Web, Why Not Originals?

A much commented upon study has come out that shows quite a big jump in online viewership of episodic network television shows:

“With over 12 billion videos watched online in the U.S. during the month of May, its hard to argue against the ubiquity of the PC as the king of media. To further this claim, market research company, Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI), has released a study that claims that almost 20 percent of primetime “episodic” television shows are watched online.” (via)

So, the argument that people only watch short clips online no longer rings true.  However, it would be tough to argue that there have been any legitimate orginal online “hits.” (ok, some will argue LonelyGirl15 but even at it’s height it has never been widely viewed)

The question is why.  The most obvious reason is that there haven’t been any great online originals yet.  Sure, there have been some mildly entertaining bits out there (Wainy Days?  The Guild? We Need Girlfriends?) but nothing that has been strong enough and consistant enough to build a solid audience.

The second reason is that nobody knows what’s online.  There is no advertising or marketing.  Relying on the “viral” nature of the internet might work for a one-off but it will never build the kind of audience that could some day be self-sufficient.

With the networks and bigger-name creatives placing more time and money into online originals things might change but for the time being the best way to be a hit online is to be a hit on TV.

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Comedy (as ever) is a Pretty Subjective Thing

The nice folks over at Wired asked the guys behind MTV sketch show (and one-time web-wonders) Human Giant to pick out the next great web sensations.

Their list was pretty much a mix of fairly well-established comedy folk who have gone to the web as a way to put out work that nobody in the film or TV world was willing to touch.

Some of their picks, like the David Wain, Michael Showalter and Bob Odenkirk are definitely funny but not exactly new to the scene.  Others, like Jake & Amir are already on to other projects.

There’s nothing wrong with this list of web funnies – I just wish they’d pointed out a few more missed gems.

Revisiting MyDamnChannel

So, MyDamnChannel had a little news a few weeks back with the launch of two new web-series, the soap-spoof “Horrible People” and the hiphop cooking show “Cooking with Coolio.”  I thought I’d head over to the site and see how things were going.

I gotta say, it doesn’t look like things are going all that well.  I know that they syndicate their programming so view-counts aren’t completely reliable but here’s what I found:

Horrible People #1 : 10,668 views

Horrible People #2: 10,576 views

Horrible People #3: 3,576 views

Yikes.  That’s terrible.  And the news for Coolio is even worse, with his most recent video barely making it to 3000 videos.

And what about the other shows on the site.  Well, Andy Milanakis doesn’t have a single video over 10,000 views even with his supposed MTV fame and even David Wain’s highly vaunted “Wainy Days” is only averaging 25,000 views an episode.

Interestingly, the one show that seems to be very successful is Harry Shearer’s “Found Objects”, featuring video of newsmakers just before they go on live.  These episodes are getting hundreds of thousands of views per post, sometimes into the millions.  Of course, this is the only show on MyDamnChannel not to feature any original content.  It’s really just outtakes and bloopers.

So, what do we take away from all of this.  One, it is not easy to get viewers for web series.  Two, if the webseries is mediocre or just plain bad you can simply forget about building a following (unless you feature girls in bikinis). And, three, there is no consensus yet as to what is required to make a series on the web viable.