Scripps takes lifestyle programming to YouTube

Scripps, the owner of HGTV, and the Food Network, DIY Network and the Fine Living Network, has partnered with YouTube to create an online channel for each of their on-air channels.  While none of the first 200 or so Scripps clips was actually produced specifically for the web, segments from these kinds of lifestyle shows do tend to be inherently bite-sized--and Scripps has even sped up the slower ones for the YouTube attention span.

Cooking show fans will be happy that they can now make "chocolate gooey butter cookies" with Paula Deen or, for you calorie-averse treat-o-phobes, "fresh fruit stack sticks" with Rachel Ray.

How-to and instructional videos are becoming an important commodity online, so these clips could well be stumbled upon by someone searching for "custom home" or "Chorizo burger w/pimento mayonnaise."  Scripps has already begun selling advertising against their YouTube content--commercials for a brand of baked beans pop up a few seconds into every clip.  And while the revenue from that may not amount to much more than a hill of beans now, with a large enough library and a stable of sponsors, this approach could make sense for TV companies looking to give their short-form content a second life.

“April is the cruelest month.” Yes, even in May.

Last Friday morning, the opening line of “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot’s most famous poem, became one of most explosively googled phrases in America. (Eliot spelled “cruellest” with two L’s, but I’m all in favor of editing poets for brevity.)

The line appeared on Google’s aptly named Hot Trends list, a utility offered by the company that offers a glimpse of what the online nation is most furiously searching for at any given moment. Hot Trends is Google’s answer to the “most viewed” pages that have become a fixture on so many news and entertainment websites. Popularity is the web’s basic unit of currency now, a dynamic that works about as well as it did in high school. Chances are you know the names of the head-turning, eye-candy types—and have been unable to avoid the loud-mouthed troublemakers. As for the rest of us, sorry guys, if you’re not in the in crowd, you’re just...in the crowd.

Hot Trends is just such a popularity contest. As I write this, a few of the top ten phrases are “american gladiators,” “suge knight knocked out,” “skimpy prom dress” and “florida fires.” Jocks, violence, prom queens and fire—failsafe ways to make sure everyone knows who you are.

So imagine my surprise when something as bookish, stuffy and uncool as a line from Modernist poetry popped up on Hot Trends in one concentrated burst. It was more than surprise, actually—it was bafflement: what could explain a hike large enough to beat a field of popular searches that included “bikini-wearing teacher,” and “hulk hogan’s son?”

I searched for the Eliot phrase in hopes of finding the answer, but ironically, Google was of little help. All it turned up were a few links to the text of the poem, and a long list of news stories from April that had invoked the month’s legendarily clichéd cruelty to describe gas prices, General Motors’ stock performance, taxes, and Seattle Mariner Richie Sexon’s batting average. But this was May 9th, and the most recent of those stories was over a week old—whatever inspired people to start googling the phrase, it had had to have happened within the last few hours.

Sony Pictures Television officially launched C-Spot today, a new web TV channel that will be home to a 13-week season of online comedy.  There will be six new scripted shows, one "airing" each day of the week.  Going along with the conventional wisdom about online audience-building, C-Spot will play on a variety of platforms, including Sony's Crackle, YouTube and Hulu, with revenue-sharing deals so Sony can get a piece of the advertising pie no matter where the shows get watched.

The shows represent, if not a giant leap forward for online television, at least a step in the right direction.  They avoid the id-riddled blue humor that many Web comedy portals can't seem to get away from.  In fact, there are so few curse words and blatant sexual references that even this blog can get away with embedding episodes.  Check one out below.

There's a definite gamut here of funny to absurd.  But all the shows are well-produced -- with budgets of about $10k/episode, according to Sony -- and they're all at least somewhat amusing, with the best managing to be downright chuckleworthy.

The Writers Room is one of the more dynamic and character-driven programs.  It's a Larry Sanders-esque look at a group of writers putting together a late-night talk show, in this case "Super Late with Kevin Pollock."  Except for a once-an-episode conference call cameo, Pollock never actually appears on the show.  One of the in-jokes is that the cast is made up of real TV writers, including Bruce Kirschbaum ("Seinfeld," "Everybody Loves Raymond"), Jeff Kahn ("The Ben Stiller Show") and Frank Conniff (MST3000).  More than that, the show's 10 short episodes were shot in five days, so in a way it's not inaccurate to say it's really just a camera pointed at a room full of writers riffing all day.  Which turns out to be worth watching.

MTV's "Human Giant" sketch show dropped a viral video onto FunnyOrDie today--it's a bit about Will Arnett being duped by a couple of scandal-hungry paparazzi (see image).

I personally hadn't seen much by Human Giant, so I went through several of the videos from their forthcoming second season, and a few from their first.

Not only are more than a few of the sketches actually funny, but you get the sense they were written with both TV and the Web in mind.

We all know you don't have to bleep on the Web--so these episodes can use any kind of language they want.  Couple the R-rated, sexualized, pop-heavy subject matter with the still-mildly-surprising sight of TV celebrities cursing a blue streak, and you've already got a good head of viral steam going.  They even prove their web bonafides with a sketch about a guy who gets semi-famous by ... er ... 'unmanning' himself on the Internet (fainthearted,  beware).

Who knows if the Web version will drive viewers to the TV show or vice versa or both--but at least it feels like something new.

YouTube is about to hit 75 million videos. At the beginning of February, it had 70 million. YouTube told me recently that 10 hours of new video are uploaded every minute. And that every day, the site gets -- their words -- "hundreds of thousands" of new videos.

On a real red letter day I'll watch maybe 25 videos (and remember, it's my job). But if you figure 200,000 a day get put up on YouTube -- that's about one-hundredth of 1%.

The videos most of us watch are the ones that have tipped into the mainstream -- the bizarre, hilarious or sensational most-viewed clips that have become today's preferred water-cooler fodder.

But those videos are really just a pinch of sand from a mile-long beach -- the tiniest, least representative fraction of what gets uploaded every day. What YouTube is truly made of is the stuff no one ever sees -- stuff not meant for, or wanted by, the public.

After a lackluster performance in its NBC debut on Tuesday night, "quarterlife's'" impressively durable hype bubble has finally popped.   The show scored 3.1 million viewers and finished last in its time slot, marking, according to Reuters, NBC's "worst time-slot performance in at least 17 years."

And so, after weeks of trumpeting his groundbreaking sale of the show to NBC,  creator Marshall Herskovitz has changed his tune.

"It never should have been a network show. It's too specific," Herskovitz told a group   at the Harvard Business School on Wednesday. "From the first three minutes," he said of the feeling he got from seeing the show on air, "I knew it wasn't right."

Perhaps, if it wasn't right for ABC, or the Internet, or NBC, it may be right for Bravo.  NewTeeVee is reporting today that the cable network will be the show's last stop.

So yet a fourth (and hopefully final) chapter opens on this peculiar saga, which first set out to prove that failed television ideas can succeed on the Internet, and then, failing that, that failed Internet ideas can work on television.  Since that didn't work either, we're now being offered yet another hypothesis: that a show no one liked in its first three incarnations can still make a few bucks on cable.  Sounds totally possible.

(photo by Lori Shepler / LAT)

(photo courtesy NBC Universal)

The story of "Quarterlife," which premieres tonight on NBC, has been more about the ambitions of the show's creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, than about the show itself. This drama about being young in a confusing world is in many ways the tale of two TV-makers being confused in a young person's world. 

"Quarterlife" -- which Mary McNamara reviews in today's paper, and which I wrote about in November -- began as a pilot for ABC way back in 2004, when YouTube was still a far-off twinkle in some nerd's eye.  For one reason or another, "1/4life" didn't make it to prime-time, forcing Zwick and Herskovitz -- who wanted to keep their idea alive -- to figure out another approach.

What they came up with sounded pretty good on paper:  an "Internet show," complete with a main character who's also a video blogger -- and all wrapped in a real-live social network.  If that wasn't cutting-edge television, then kiss my grits.

But despite a good deal of hype, some newfangled trimmings, and a partnership with MySpace, "Quarterlife" never quite crossed the Web's success threshold: it didn't go viral. The episodes on MySpace tended to hover around 100,000 views over their lifetime, with maybe another 50,000 or so each from each episode's YouTube incarnation.  (For reference, a semi-well known YouTube blogger named KevJumba scored 450,000 views this week when he posted a video about how he broke his shin and had to "get a cast that extends up to my unmentionables.")

The strangest turn happened when, very soon after the writers strike started, Herskovitz and Zwick sold the show to a content-strapped NBC.  "Quarterlife" had quickly come full circle -- imagined as a TV show and then reimagined as an Internet show, it was now being re-reimagined as an Internet show that beat the odds to make it onto TV.

Will the show work on NBC, even though it didn't really work online?  In a recent essay for Slate, Herskovitz waves away the question: "We've already won the main victory, no matter what happens."  In this case, the main victory is not making a hit show, but getting a network TV deal that gives him "100 percent ownership and creative control."

No one knows the exact recipe for getting a video to go viral, but here's one that ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" has exploited twice in a row:

Several heavy dollops each of sex, celebrities, and the F-word (bleeped or unbleeped, according to taste).  The more of each, the richer the result. Mix thoroughly! 

Last month we had "I'm [making love with] Matt Damon," in which Sarah Silverman apologizes to boyfriend Kimmel that she's been repeatedly unfaithful to him while on the road. This month, we have Kimmel's spectacular, star-studded revenge -- a tour de force called  "I'm [making love with] Ben Affleck" -- in which Kimmel informs Silverman of his own transgression.

Cue Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle and about a dozen other boldface names, many of whom appear in a "We are the World"-type shot of a studio recording ensemble. There's nothing like mass self-effacement for a good laugh -- it's sort of like the good-natured big brother of mass abasement, the psychosocial crack-fuel of the gossip world.

The Affleck video has torn a hole in YouTube by racking up nearly 500,000 views in its first half-day. 

Hey, ABC -- you may be onto something here! Fellas oughta take that recipe to the viral bake-off.

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.

Google Trends and the ghost of T.S. Eliot

“April is the cruelest month.” Yes, even in May.

Last Friday morning, the opening line of “The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot’s most famous poem, became one of most explosively googled phrases in America. (Eliot spelled “cruellest” with two L’s, but I’m all in favor of editing poets for brevity.)

The line appeared on Google’s aptly named Hot Trends list, a utility offered by the company that offers a glimpse of what the online nation is most furiously searching for at any given moment. Hot Trends is Google’s answer to the “most viewed” pages that have become a fixture on so many news and entertainment websites. Popularity is the web’s basic unit of currency now, a dynamic that works about as well as it did in high school. Chances are you know the names of the head-turning, eye-candy types—and have been unable to avoid the loud-mouthed troublemakers. As for the rest of us, sorry guys, if you’re not in the in crowd, you’re just...in the crowd.

Hot Trends is just such a popularity contest. As I write this, a few of the top ten phrases are “american gladiators,” “suge knight knocked out,” “skimpy prom dress” and “florida fires.” Jocks, violence, prom queens and fire—failsafe ways to make sure everyone knows who you are.

So imagine my surprise when something as bookish, stuffy and uncool as a line from Modernist poetry popped up on Hot Trends in one concentrated burst. It was more than surprise, actually—it was bafflement: what could explain a hike large enough to beat a field of popular searches that included “bikini-wearing teacher,” and “hulk hogan’s son?”

I searched for the Eliot phrase in hopes of finding the answer, but ironically, Google was of little help. All it turned up were a few links to the text of the poem, and a long list of news stories from April that had invoked the month’s legendarily clichéd cruelty to describe gas prices, General Motors’ stock performance, taxes, and Seattle Mariner Richie Sexon’s batting average. But this was May 9th, and the most recent of those stories was over a week old—whatever inspired people to start googling the phrase, it had had to have happened within the last few hours.

Sony Pictures Television officially launched C-Spot today, a new web TV channel that will be home to a 13-week season of online comedy.  There will be six new scripted shows, one "airing" each day of the week.  Going along with the conventional wisdom about online audience-building, C-Spot will play on a variety of platforms, including Sony's Crackle, YouTube and Hulu, with revenue-sharing deals so Sony can get a piece of the advertising pie no matter where the shows get watched.

The shows represent, if not a giant leap forward for online television, at least a step in the right direction.  They avoid the id-riddled blue humor that many Web comedy portals can't seem to get away from.  In fact, there are so few curse words and blatant sexual references that even this blog can get away with embedding episodes.  Check one out below.

There's a definite gamut here of funny to absurd.  But all the shows are well-produced -- with budgets of about $10k/episode, according to Sony -- and they're all at least somewhat amusing, with the best managing to be downright chuckleworthy.

The Writers Room is one of the more dynamic and character-driven programs.  It's a Larry Sanders-esque look at a group of writers putting together a late-night talk show, in this case "Super Late with Kevin Pollock."  Except for a once-an-episode conference call cameo, Pollock never actually appears on the show.  One of the in-jokes is that the cast is made up of real TV writers, including Bruce Kirschbaum ("Seinfeld," "Everybody Loves Raymond"), Jeff Kahn ("The Ben Stiller Show") and Frank Conniff (MST3000).  More than that, the show's 10 short episodes were shot in five days, so in a way it's not inaccurate to say it's really just a camera pointed at a room full of writers riffing all day.  Which turns out to be worth watching.

MTV's "Human Giant" sketch show dropped a viral video onto FunnyOrDie today--it's a bit about Will Arnett being duped by a couple of scandal-hungry paparazzi (see image).

I personally hadn't seen much by Human Giant, so I went through several of the videos from their forthcoming second season, and a few from their first.

Not only are more than a few of the sketches actually funny, but you get the sense they were written with both TV and the Web in mind.

We all know you don't have to bleep on the Web--so these episodes can use any kind of language they want.  Couple the R-rated, sexualized, pop-heavy subject matter with the still-mildly-surprising sight of TV celebrities cursing a blue streak, and you've already got a good head of viral steam going.  They even prove their web bonafides with a sketch about a guy who gets semi-famous by ... er ... 'unmanning' himself on the Internet (fainthearted,  beware).

Who knows if the Web version will drive viewers to the TV show or vice versa or both--but at least it feels like something new.

YouTube is about to hit 75 million videos. At the beginning of February, it had 70 million. YouTube told me recently that 10 hours of new video are uploaded every minute. And that every day, the site gets -- their words -- "hundreds of thousands" of new videos.

On a real red letter day I'll watch maybe 25 videos (and remember, it's my job). But if you figure 200,000 a day get put up on YouTube -- that's about one-hundredth of 1%.

The videos most of us watch are the ones that have tipped into the mainstream -- the bizarre, hilarious or sensational most-viewed clips that have become today's preferred water-cooler fodder.

But those videos are really just a pinch of sand from a mile-long beach -- the tiniest, least representative fraction of what gets uploaded every day. What YouTube is truly made of is the stuff no one ever sees -- stuff not meant for, or wanted by, the public.

After a lackluster performance in its NBC debut on Tuesday night, "quarterlife's'" impressively durable hype bubble has finally popped.   The show scored 3.1 million viewers and finished last in its time slot, marking, according to Reuters, NBC's "worst time-slot performance in at least 17 years."

And so, after weeks of trumpeting his groundbreaking sale of the show to NBC,  creator Marshall Herskovitz has changed his tune.

"It never should have been a network show. It's too specific," Herskovitz told a group   at the Harvard Business School on Wednesday. "From the first three minutes," he said of the feeling he got from seeing the show on air, "I knew it wasn't right."

Perhaps, if it wasn't right for ABC, or the Internet, or NBC, it may be right for Bravo.  NewTeeVee is reporting today that the cable network will be the show's last stop.

So yet a fourth (and hopefully final) chapter opens on this peculiar saga, which first set out to prove that failed television ideas can succeed on the Internet, and then, failing that, that failed Internet ideas can work on television.  Since that didn't work either, we're now being offered yet another hypothesis: that a show no one liked in its first three incarnations can still make a few bucks on cable.  Sounds totally possible.

(photo by Lori Shepler / LAT)

(photo courtesy NBC Universal)

The story of "Quarterlife," which premieres tonight on NBC, has been more about the ambitions of the show's creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, than about the show itself. This drama about being young in a confusing world is in many ways the tale of two TV-makers being confused in a young person's world. 

"Quarterlife" -- which Mary McNamara reviews in today's paper, and which I wrote about in November -- began as a pilot for ABC way back in 2004, when YouTube was still a far-off twinkle in some nerd's eye.  For one reason or another, "1/4life" didn't make it to prime-time, forcing Zwick and Herskovitz -- who wanted to keep their idea alive -- to figure out another approach.

What they came up with sounded pretty good on paper:  an "Internet show," complete with a main character who's also a video blogger -- and all wrapped in a real-live social network.  If that wasn't cutting-edge television, then kiss my grits.

But despite a good deal of hype, some newfangled trimmings, and a partnership with MySpace, "Quarterlife" never quite crossed the Web's success threshold: it didn't go viral. The episodes on MySpace tended to hover around 100,000 views over their lifetime, with maybe another 50,000 or so each from each episode's YouTube incarnation.  (For reference, a semi-well known YouTube blogger named KevJumba scored 450,000 views this week when he posted a video about how he broke his shin and had to "get a cast that extends up to my unmentionables.")

The strangest turn happened when, very soon after the writers strike started, Herskovitz and Zwick sold the show to a content-strapped NBC.  "Quarterlife" had quickly come full circle -- imagined as a TV show and then reimagined as an Internet show, it was now being re-reimagined as an Internet show that beat the odds to make it onto TV.

Will the show work on NBC, even though it didn't really work online?  In a recent essay for Slate, Herskovitz waves away the question: "We've already won the main victory, no matter what happens."  In this case, the main victory is not making a hit show, but getting a network TV deal that gives him "100 percent ownership and creative control."

No one knows the exact recipe for getting a video to go viral, but here's one that ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" has exploited twice in a row:

Several heavy dollops each of sex, celebrities, and the F-word (bleeped or unbleeped, according to taste).  The more of each, the richer the result. Mix thoroughly! 

Last month we had "I'm [making love with] Matt Damon," in which Sarah Silverman apologizes to boyfriend Kimmel that she's been repeatedly unfaithful to him while on the road. This month, we have Kimmel's spectacular, star-studded revenge -- a tour de force called  "I'm [making love with] Ben Affleck" -- in which Kimmel informs Silverman of his own transgression.

Cue Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle and about a dozen other boldface names, many of whom appear in a "We are the World"-type shot of a studio recording ensemble. There's nothing like mass self-effacement for a good laugh -- it's sort of like the good-natured big brother of mass abasement, the psychosocial crack-fuel of the gossip world.

The Affleck video has torn a hole in YouTube by racking up nearly 500,000 views in its first half-day. 

Hey, ABC -- you may be onto something here! Fellas oughta take that recipe to the viral bake-off.

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.

Sony's C-Spot: New Web comedy lineup surprisingly clean despite Ron Jeremy cameo

Sony Pictures Television officially launched C-Spot today, a new web TV channel that will be home to a 13-week season of online comedy.  There will be six new scripted shows, one "airing" each day of the week.  Going along with the conventional wisdom about online audience-building, C-Spot will play on a variety of platforms, including Sony's Crackle, YouTube and Hulu, with revenue-sharing deals so Sony can get a piece of the advertising pie no matter where the shows get watched.

The shows represent, if not a giant leap forward for online television, at least a step in the right direction.  They avoid the id-riddled blue humor that many Web comedy portals can't seem to get away from.  In fact, there are so few curse words and blatant sexual references that even this blog can get away with embedding episodes.  Check one out below.

There's a definite gamut here of funny to absurd.  But all the shows are well-produced -- with budgets of about $10k/episode, according to Sony -- and they're all at least somewhat amusing, with the best managing to be downright chuckleworthy.

The Writers Room is one of the more dynamic and character-driven programs.  It's a Larry Sanders-esque look at a group of writers putting together a late-night talk show, in this case "Super Late with Kevin Pollock."  Except for a once-an-episode conference call cameo, Pollock never actually appears on the show.  One of the in-jokes is that the cast is made up of real TV writers, including Bruce Kirschbaum ("Seinfeld," "Everybody Loves Raymond"), Jeff Kahn ("The Ben Stiller Show") and Frank Conniff (MST3000).  More than that, the show's 10 short episodes were shot in five days, so in a way it's not inaccurate to say it's really just a camera pointed at a room full of writers riffing all day.  Which turns out to be worth watching.

MTV's "Human Giant" sketch show dropped a viral video onto FunnyOrDie today--it's a bit about Will Arnett being duped by a couple of scandal-hungry paparazzi (see image).

I personally hadn't seen much by Human Giant, so I went through several of the videos from their forthcoming second season, and a few from their first.

Not only are more than a few of the sketches actually funny, but you get the sense they were written with both TV and the Web in mind.

We all know you don't have to bleep on the Web--so these episodes can use any kind of language they want.  Couple the R-rated, sexualized, pop-heavy subject matter with the still-mildly-surprising sight of TV celebrities cursing a blue streak, and you've already got a good head of viral steam going.  They even prove their web bonafides with a sketch about a guy who gets semi-famous by ... er ... 'unmanning' himself on the Internet (fainthearted,  beware).

Who knows if the Web version will drive viewers to the TV show or vice versa or both--but at least it feels like something new.

YouTube is about to hit 75 million videos. At the beginning of February, it had 70 million. YouTube told me recently that 10 hours of new video are uploaded every minute. And that every day, the site gets -- their words -- "hundreds of thousands" of new videos.

On a real red letter day I'll watch maybe 25 videos (and remember, it's my job). But if you figure 200,000 a day get put up on YouTube -- that's about one-hundredth of 1%.

The videos most of us watch are the ones that have tipped into the mainstream -- the bizarre, hilarious or sensational most-viewed clips that have become today's preferred water-cooler fodder.

But those videos are really just a pinch of sand from a mile-long beach -- the tiniest, least representative fraction of what gets uploaded every day. What YouTube is truly made of is the stuff no one ever sees -- stuff not meant for, or wanted by, the public.

After a lackluster performance in its NBC debut on Tuesday night, "quarterlife's'" impressively durable hype bubble has finally popped.   The show scored 3.1 million viewers and finished last in its time slot, marking, according to Reuters, NBC's "worst time-slot performance in at least 17 years."

And so, after weeks of trumpeting his groundbreaking sale of the show to NBC,  creator Marshall Herskovitz has changed his tune.

"It never should have been a network show. It's too specific," Herskovitz told a group   at the Harvard Business School on Wednesday. "From the first three minutes," he said of the feeling he got from seeing the show on air, "I knew it wasn't right."

Perhaps, if it wasn't right for ABC, or the Internet, or NBC, it may be right for Bravo.  NewTeeVee is reporting today that the cable network will be the show's last stop.

So yet a fourth (and hopefully final) chapter opens on this peculiar saga, which first set out to prove that failed television ideas can succeed on the Internet, and then, failing that, that failed Internet ideas can work on television.  Since that didn't work either, we're now being offered yet another hypothesis: that a show no one liked in its first three incarnations can still make a few bucks on cable.  Sounds totally possible.

(photo by Lori Shepler / LAT)

(photo courtesy NBC Universal)

The story of "Quarterlife," which premieres tonight on NBC, has been more about the ambitions of the show's creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, than about the show itself. This drama about being young in a confusing world is in many ways the tale of two TV-makers being confused in a young person's world. 

"Quarterlife" -- which Mary McNamara reviews in today's paper, and which I wrote about in November -- began as a pilot for ABC way back in 2004, when YouTube was still a far-off twinkle in some nerd's eye.  For one reason or another, "1/4life" didn't make it to prime-time, forcing Zwick and Herskovitz -- who wanted to keep their idea alive -- to figure out another approach.

What they came up with sounded pretty good on paper:  an "Internet show," complete with a main character who's also a video blogger -- and all wrapped in a real-live social network.  If that wasn't cutting-edge television, then kiss my grits.

But despite a good deal of hype, some newfangled trimmings, and a partnership with MySpace, "Quarterlife" never quite crossed the Web's success threshold: it didn't go viral. The episodes on MySpace tended to hover around 100,000 views over their lifetime, with maybe another 50,000 or so each from each episode's YouTube incarnation.  (For reference, a semi-well known YouTube blogger named KevJumba scored 450,000 views this week when he posted a video about how he broke his shin and had to "get a cast that extends up to my unmentionables.")

The strangest turn happened when, very soon after the writers strike started, Herskovitz and Zwick sold the show to a content-strapped NBC.  "Quarterlife" had quickly come full circle -- imagined as a TV show and then reimagined as an Internet show, it was now being re-reimagined as an Internet show that beat the odds to make it onto TV.

Will the show work on NBC, even though it didn't really work online?  In a recent essay for Slate, Herskovitz waves away the question: "We've already won the main victory, no matter what happens."  In this case, the main victory is not making a hit show, but getting a network TV deal that gives him "100 percent ownership and creative control."

No one knows the exact recipe for getting a video to go viral, but here's one that ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" has exploited twice in a row:

Several heavy dollops each of sex, celebrities, and the F-word (bleeped or unbleeped, according to taste).  The more of each, the richer the result. Mix thoroughly! 

Last month we had "I'm [making love with] Matt Damon," in which Sarah Silverman apologizes to boyfriend Kimmel that she's been repeatedly unfaithful to him while on the road. This month, we have Kimmel's spectacular, star-studded revenge -- a tour de force called  "I'm [making love with] Ben Affleck" -- in which Kimmel informs Silverman of his own transgression.

Cue Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle and about a dozen other boldface names, many of whom appear in a "We are the World"-type shot of a studio recording ensemble. There's nothing like mass self-effacement for a good laugh -- it's sort of like the good-natured big brother of mass abasement, the psychosocial crack-fuel of the gossip world.

The Affleck video has torn a hole in YouTube by racking up nearly 500,000 views in its first half-day. 

Hey, ABC -- you may be onto something here! Fellas oughta take that recipe to the viral bake-off.

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.

MTV's 'Human Giant' straddles TV, online

MTV's "Human Giant" sketch show dropped a viral video onto FunnyOrDie today--it's a bit about Will Arnett being duped by a couple of scandal-hungry paparazzi (see image).

I personally hadn't seen much by Human Giant, so I went through several of the videos from their forthcoming second season, and a few from their first.

Not only are more than a few of the sketches actually funny, but you get the sense they were written with both TV and the Web in mind.

We all know you don't have to bleep on the Web--so these episodes can use any kind of language they want.  Couple the R-rated, sexualized, pop-heavy subject matter with the still-mildly-surprising sight of TV celebrities cursing a blue streak, and you've already got a good head of viral steam going.  They even prove their web bonafides with a sketch about a guy who gets semi-famous by ... er ... 'unmanning' himself on the Internet (fainthearted,  beware).

Who knows if the Web version will drive viewers to the TV show or vice versa or both--but at least it feels like something new.

YouTube is about to hit 75 million videos. At the beginning of February, it had 70 million. YouTube told me recently that 10 hours of new video are uploaded every minute. And that every day, the site gets -- their words -- "hundreds of thousands" of new videos.

On a real red letter day I'll watch maybe 25 videos (and remember, it's my job). But if you figure 200,000 a day get put up on YouTube -- that's about one-hundredth of 1%.

The videos most of us watch are the ones that have tipped into the mainstream -- the bizarre, hilarious or sensational most-viewed clips that have become today's preferred water-cooler fodder.

But those videos are really just a pinch of sand from a mile-long beach -- the tiniest, least representative fraction of what gets uploaded every day. What YouTube is truly made of is the stuff no one ever sees -- stuff not meant for, or wanted by, the public.

After a lackluster performance in its NBC debut on Tuesday night, "quarterlife's'" impressively durable hype bubble has finally popped.   The show scored 3.1 million viewers and finished last in its time slot, marking, according to Reuters, NBC's "worst time-slot performance in at least 17 years."

And so, after weeks of trumpeting his groundbreaking sale of the show to NBC,  creator Marshall Herskovitz has changed his tune.

"It never should have been a network show. It's too specific," Herskovitz told a group   at the Harvard Business School on Wednesday. "From the first three minutes," he said of the feeling he got from seeing the show on air, "I knew it wasn't right."

Perhaps, if it wasn't right for ABC, or the Internet, or NBC, it may be right for Bravo.  NewTeeVee is reporting today that the cable network will be the show's last stop.

So yet a fourth (and hopefully final) chapter opens on this peculiar saga, which first set out to prove that failed television ideas can succeed on the Internet, and then, failing that, that failed Internet ideas can work on television.  Since that didn't work either, we're now being offered yet another hypothesis: that a show no one liked in its first three incarnations can still make a few bucks on cable.  Sounds totally possible.

(photo by Lori Shepler / LAT)

(photo courtesy NBC Universal)

The story of "Quarterlife," which premieres tonight on NBC, has been more about the ambitions of the show's creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, than about the show itself. This drama about being young in a confusing world is in many ways the tale of two TV-makers being confused in a young person's world. 

"Quarterlife" -- which Mary McNamara reviews in today's paper, and which I wrote about in November -- began as a pilot for ABC way back in 2004, when YouTube was still a far-off twinkle in some nerd's eye.  For one reason or another, "1/4life" didn't make it to prime-time, forcing Zwick and Herskovitz -- who wanted to keep their idea alive -- to figure out another approach.

What they came up with sounded pretty good on paper:  an "Internet show," complete with a main character who's also a video blogger -- and all wrapped in a real-live social network.  If that wasn't cutting-edge television, then kiss my grits.

But despite a good deal of hype, some newfangled trimmings, and a partnership with MySpace, "Quarterlife" never quite crossed the Web's success threshold: it didn't go viral. The episodes on MySpace tended to hover around 100,000 views over their lifetime, with maybe another 50,000 or so each from each episode's YouTube incarnation.  (For reference, a semi-well known YouTube blogger named KevJumba scored 450,000 views this week when he posted a video about how he broke his shin and had to "get a cast that extends up to my unmentionables.")

The strangest turn happened when, very soon after the writers strike started, Herskovitz and Zwick sold the show to a content-strapped NBC.  "Quarterlife" had quickly come full circle -- imagined as a TV show and then reimagined as an Internet show, it was now being re-reimagined as an Internet show that beat the odds to make it onto TV.

Will the show work on NBC, even though it didn't really work online?  In a recent essay for Slate, Herskovitz waves away the question: "We've already won the main victory, no matter what happens."  In this case, the main victory is not making a hit show, but getting a network TV deal that gives him "100 percent ownership and creative control."

No one knows the exact recipe for getting a video to go viral, but here's one that ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" has exploited twice in a row:

Several heavy dollops each of sex, celebrities, and the F-word (bleeped or unbleeped, according to taste).  The more of each, the richer the result. Mix thoroughly! 

Last month we had "I'm [making love with] Matt Damon," in which Sarah Silverman apologizes to boyfriend Kimmel that she's been repeatedly unfaithful to him while on the road. This month, we have Kimmel's spectacular, star-studded revenge -- a tour de force called  "I'm [making love with] Ben Affleck" -- in which Kimmel informs Silverman of his own transgression.

Cue Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle and about a dozen other boldface names, many of whom appear in a "We are the World"-type shot of a studio recording ensemble. There's nothing like mass self-effacement for a good laugh -- it's sort of like the good-natured big brother of mass abasement, the psychosocial crack-fuel of the gossip world.

The Affleck video has torn a hole in YouTube by racking up nearly 500,000 views in its first half-day. 

Hey, ABC -- you may be onto something here! Fellas oughta take that recipe to the viral bake-off.

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.

From the Sunday Calendar: YouTube hits 75 million videos, and what that means

YouTube is about to hit 75 million videos. At the beginning of February, it had 70 million. YouTube told me recently that 10 hours of new video are uploaded every minute. And that every day, the site gets -- their words -- "hundreds of thousands" of new videos.

On a real red letter day I'll watch maybe 25 videos (and remember, it's my job). But if you figure 200,000 a day get put up on YouTube -- that's about one-hundredth of 1%.

The videos most of us watch are the ones that have tipped into the mainstream -- the bizarre, hilarious or sensational most-viewed clips that have become today's preferred water-cooler fodder.

But those videos are really just a pinch of sand from a mile-long beach -- the tiniest, least representative fraction of what gets uploaded every day. What YouTube is truly made of is the stuff no one ever sees -- stuff not meant for, or wanted by, the public.

After a lackluster performance in its NBC debut on Tuesday night, "quarterlife's'" impressively durable hype bubble has finally popped.   The show scored 3.1 million viewers and finished last in its time slot, marking, according to Reuters, NBC's "worst time-slot performance in at least 17 years."

And so, after weeks of trumpeting his groundbreaking sale of the show to NBC,  creator Marshall Herskovitz has changed his tune.

"It never should have been a network show. It's too specific," Herskovitz told a group   at the Harvard Business School on Wednesday. "From the first three minutes," he said of the feeling he got from seeing the show on air, "I knew it wasn't right."

Perhaps, if it wasn't right for ABC, or the Internet, or NBC, it may be right for Bravo.  NewTeeVee is reporting today that the cable network will be the show's last stop.

So yet a fourth (and hopefully final) chapter opens on this peculiar saga, which first set out to prove that failed television ideas can succeed on the Internet, and then, failing that, that failed Internet ideas can work on television.  Since that didn't work either, we're now being offered yet another hypothesis: that a show no one liked in its first three incarnations can still make a few bucks on cable.  Sounds totally possible.

(photo by Lori Shepler / LAT)

(photo courtesy NBC Universal)

The story of "Quarterlife," which premieres tonight on NBC, has been more about the ambitions of the show's creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, than about the show itself. This drama about being young in a confusing world is in many ways the tale of two TV-makers being confused in a young person's world. 

"Quarterlife" -- which Mary McNamara reviews in today's paper, and which I wrote about in November -- began as a pilot for ABC way back in 2004, when YouTube was still a far-off twinkle in some nerd's eye.  For one reason or another, "1/4life" didn't make it to prime-time, forcing Zwick and Herskovitz -- who wanted to keep their idea alive -- to figure out another approach.

What they came up with sounded pretty good on paper:  an "Internet show," complete with a main character who's also a video blogger -- and all wrapped in a real-live social network.  If that wasn't cutting-edge television, then kiss my grits.

But despite a good deal of hype, some newfangled trimmings, and a partnership with MySpace, "Quarterlife" never quite crossed the Web's success threshold: it didn't go viral. The episodes on MySpace tended to hover around 100,000 views over their lifetime, with maybe another 50,000 or so each from each episode's YouTube incarnation.  (For reference, a semi-well known YouTube blogger named KevJumba scored 450,000 views this week when he posted a video about how he broke his shin and had to "get a cast that extends up to my unmentionables.")

The strangest turn happened when, very soon after the writers strike started, Herskovitz and Zwick sold the show to a content-strapped NBC.  "Quarterlife" had quickly come full circle -- imagined as a TV show and then reimagined as an Internet show, it was now being re-reimagined as an Internet show that beat the odds to make it onto TV.

Will the show work on NBC, even though it didn't really work online?  In a recent essay for Slate, Herskovitz waves away the question: "We've already won the main victory, no matter what happens."  In this case, the main victory is not making a hit show, but getting a network TV deal that gives him "100 percent ownership and creative control."

No one knows the exact recipe for getting a video to go viral, but here's one that ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" has exploited twice in a row:

Several heavy dollops each of sex, celebrities, and the F-word (bleeped or unbleeped, according to taste).  The more of each, the richer the result. Mix thoroughly! 

Last month we had "I'm [making love with] Matt Damon," in which Sarah Silverman apologizes to boyfriend Kimmel that she's been repeatedly unfaithful to him while on the road. This month, we have Kimmel's spectacular, star-studded revenge -- a tour de force called  "I'm [making love with] Ben Affleck" -- in which Kimmel informs Silverman of his own transgression.

Cue Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle and about a dozen other boldface names, many of whom appear in a "We are the World"-type shot of a studio recording ensemble. There's nothing like mass self-effacement for a good laugh -- it's sort of like the good-natured big brother of mass abasement, the psychosocial crack-fuel of the gossip world.

The Affleck video has torn a hole in YouTube by racking up nearly 500,000 views in its first half-day. 

Hey, ABC -- you may be onto something here! Fellas oughta take that recipe to the viral bake-off.

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.

'quarterlife': That's a wrap

After a lackluster performance in its NBC debut on Tuesday night, "quarterlife's'" impressively durable hype bubble has finally popped.   The show scored 3.1 million viewers and finished last in its time slot, marking, according to Reuters, NBC's "worst time-slot performance in at least 17 years."

And so, after weeks of trumpeting his groundbreaking sale of the show to NBC,  creator Marshall Herskovitz has changed his tune.

"It never should have been a network show. It's too specific," Herskovitz told a group   at the Harvard Business School on Wednesday. "From the first three minutes," he said of the feeling he got from seeing the show on air, "I knew it wasn't right."

Perhaps, if it wasn't right for ABC, or the Internet, or NBC, it may be right for Bravo.  NewTeeVee is reporting today that the cable network will be the show's last stop.

So yet a fourth (and hopefully final) chapter opens on this peculiar saga, which first set out to prove that failed television ideas can succeed on the Internet, and then, failing that, that failed Internet ideas can work on television.  Since that didn't work either, we're now being offered yet another hypothesis: that a show no one liked in its first three incarnations can still make a few bucks on cable.  Sounds totally possible.

(photo by Lori Shepler / LAT)

(photo courtesy NBC Universal)

The story of "Quarterlife," which premieres tonight on NBC, has been more about the ambitions of the show's creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, than about the show itself. This drama about being young in a confusing world is in many ways the tale of two TV-makers being confused in a young person's world. 

"Quarterlife" -- which Mary McNamara reviews in today's paper, and which I wrote about in November -- began as a pilot for ABC way back in 2004, when YouTube was still a far-off twinkle in some nerd's eye.  For one reason or another, "1/4life" didn't make it to prime-time, forcing Zwick and Herskovitz -- who wanted to keep their idea alive -- to figure out another approach.

What they came up with sounded pretty good on paper:  an "Internet show," complete with a main character who's also a video blogger -- and all wrapped in a real-live social network.  If that wasn't cutting-edge television, then kiss my grits.

But despite a good deal of hype, some newfangled trimmings, and a partnership with MySpace, "Quarterlife" never quite crossed the Web's success threshold: it didn't go viral. The episodes on MySpace tended to hover around 100,000 views over their lifetime, with maybe another 50,000 or so each from each episode's YouTube incarnation.  (For reference, a semi-well known YouTube blogger named KevJumba scored 450,000 views this week when he posted a video about how he broke his shin and had to "get a cast that extends up to my unmentionables.")

The strangest turn happened when, very soon after the writers strike started, Herskovitz and Zwick sold the show to a content-strapped NBC.  "Quarterlife" had quickly come full circle -- imagined as a TV show and then reimagined as an Internet show, it was now being re-reimagined as an Internet show that beat the odds to make it onto TV.

Will the show work on NBC, even though it didn't really work online?  In a recent essay for Slate, Herskovitz waves away the question: "We've already won the main victory, no matter what happens."  In this case, the main victory is not making a hit show, but getting a network TV deal that gives him "100 percent ownership and creative control."

No one knows the exact recipe for getting a video to go viral, but here's one that ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" has exploited twice in a row:

Several heavy dollops each of sex, celebrities, and the F-word (bleeped or unbleeped, according to taste).  The more of each, the richer the result. Mix thoroughly! 

Last month we had "I'm [making love with] Matt Damon," in which Sarah Silverman apologizes to boyfriend Kimmel that she's been repeatedly unfaithful to him while on the road. This month, we have Kimmel's spectacular, star-studded revenge -- a tour de force called  "I'm [making love with] Ben Affleck" -- in which Kimmel informs Silverman of his own transgression.

Cue Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle and about a dozen other boldface names, many of whom appear in a "We are the World"-type shot of a studio recording ensemble. There's nothing like mass self-effacement for a good laugh -- it's sort of like the good-natured big brother of mass abasement, the psychosocial crack-fuel of the gossip world.

The Affleck video has torn a hole in YouTube by racking up nearly 500,000 views in its first half-day. 

Hey, ABC -- you may be onto something here! Fellas oughta take that recipe to the viral bake-off.

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.

'Quarterlife's' improbable third quarter

(photo courtesy NBC Universal)

The story of "Quarterlife," which premieres tonight on NBC, has been more about the ambitions of the show's creators, Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick, than about the show itself. This drama about being young in a confusing world is in many ways the tale of two TV-makers being confused in a young person's world. 

"Quarterlife" -- which Mary McNamara reviews in today's paper, and which I wrote about in November -- began as a pilot for ABC way back in 2004, when YouTube was still a far-off twinkle in some nerd's eye.  For one reason or another, "1/4life" didn't make it to prime-time, forcing Zwick and Herskovitz -- who wanted to keep their idea alive -- to figure out another approach.

What they came up with sounded pretty good on paper:  an "Internet show," complete with a main character who's also a video blogger -- and all wrapped in a real-live social network.  If that wasn't cutting-edge television, then kiss my grits.

But despite a good deal of hype, some newfangled trimmings, and a partnership with MySpace, "Quarterlife" never quite crossed the Web's success threshold: it didn't go viral. The episodes on MySpace tended to hover around 100,000 views over their lifetime, with maybe another 50,000 or so each from each episode's YouTube incarnation.  (For reference, a semi-well known YouTube blogger named KevJumba scored 450,000 views this week when he posted a video about how he broke his shin and had to "get a cast that extends up to my unmentionables.")

The strangest turn happened when, very soon after the writers strike started, Herskovitz and Zwick sold the show to a content-strapped NBC.  "Quarterlife" had quickly come full circle -- imagined as a TV show and then reimagined as an Internet show, it was now being re-reimagined as an Internet show that beat the odds to make it onto TV.

Will the show work on NBC, even though it didn't really work online?  In a recent essay for Slate, Herskovitz waves away the question: "We've already won the main victory, no matter what happens."  In this case, the main victory is not making a hit show, but getting a network TV deal that gives him "100 percent ownership and creative control."

No one knows the exact recipe for getting a video to go viral, but here's one that ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" has exploited twice in a row:

Several heavy dollops each of sex, celebrities, and the F-word (bleeped or unbleeped, according to taste).  The more of each, the richer the result. Mix thoroughly! 

Last month we had "I'm [making love with] Matt Damon," in which Sarah Silverman apologizes to boyfriend Kimmel that she's been repeatedly unfaithful to him while on the road. This month, we have Kimmel's spectacular, star-studded revenge -- a tour de force called  "I'm [making love with] Ben Affleck" -- in which Kimmel informs Silverman of his own transgression.

Cue Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle and about a dozen other boldface names, many of whom appear in a "We are the World"-type shot of a studio recording ensemble. There's nothing like mass self-effacement for a good laugh -- it's sort of like the good-natured big brother of mass abasement, the psychosocial crack-fuel of the gossip world.

The Affleck video has torn a hole in YouTube by racking up nearly 500,000 views in its first half-day. 

Hey, ABC -- you may be onto something here! Fellas oughta take that recipe to the viral bake-off.

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.

YouTube's F-some Foursome: Silverman, Damon, Kimmel, Affleck

No one knows the exact recipe for getting a video to go viral, but here's one that ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" has exploited twice in a row:

Several heavy dollops each of sex, celebrities, and the F-word (bleeped or unbleeped, according to taste).  The more of each, the richer the result. Mix thoroughly! 

Last month we had "I'm [making love with] Matt Damon," in which Sarah Silverman apologizes to boyfriend Kimmel that she's been repeatedly unfaithful to him while on the road. This month, we have Kimmel's spectacular, star-studded revenge -- a tour de force called  "I'm [making love with] Ben Affleck" -- in which Kimmel informs Silverman of his own transgression.

Cue Brad Pitt, Cameron Diaz, Harrison Ford, Macy Gray, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle and about a dozen other boldface names, many of whom appear in a "We are the World"-type shot of a studio recording ensemble. There's nothing like mass self-effacement for a good laugh -- it's sort of like the good-natured big brother of mass abasement, the psychosocial crack-fuel of the gossip world.

The Affleck video has torn a hole in YouTube by racking up nearly 500,000 views in its first half-day. 

Hey, ABC -- you may be onto something here! Fellas oughta take that recipe to the viral bake-off.

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.

LAT Op-Ed muses on Scientology vs. Anonymous

Michael Shermer examines the oft-discussed question of whether Scientology is a real religion. If so, he suggests, some of the rallying cries of the anti-Scientology group Anonymous -- like ""Honk if You Hate Scientology" -- might be interpreted as hate speech. But Shermer is not quite ready to go there.

It's a sticky wicket, this matter of who gets to decide what's a religion and what isn't. The people? The courts? The IRS? History? All of the above? No wonder starting a religion is such a tough business.