Rise of the Webisode

There’s no shortage of video content online. YouTube alone has over 83.4 million videos to choose from. This enormous clip buffet keeps us on a steady viewing diet of mostly:

1. Real-life, non-fiction video clips.
2. Videos that originated on another platform, like television episodes and segments or movies (legal and otherwise.)
3. Mashups of the above.

However, another video category is starting to gain more traction — scripted fictional series.

One of the most early and notable online scripted series was of course LonelyGirl15 and now its spinoff, KateModern. Collectively both series have enjoyed success to the tune of over 150 million views. Its creators recently received $5 million in venture capitalist funding which they’ve used to create an online-only production studio, EQAL.

The enormous success of these series (despite the backlash of LG15 trying to pass itself off as real at first) no doubt caught the attention of other creative writers and producers. Some very big names in Hollywood are now experimenting with fictional webisode series with hopes of even greater success. And while this is no means a complete list of what’s out there, here’s a few online-only shows from some big names that you may want to check out.

• Dr. Horrible released its first episode this week. It’s created by the fantasy mastermind Joss Whedon and stars Neil Patrick Harris.
• Prom Queen was a hit last summer with teenage audiences. Creator Michael Eisner (former head of Disney) was able to turn a profit on the series and is now trying again with Foreign Body. Eisner recently told Advertising Age that the future of online content is, “Great, creative storytelling.”
• Seth MacFarlane of Family Guy fame recently penned a deal with Google to create a new fictional web series called Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy. The first episode will be released in September.
• Another success story is Lil’ Bush created by Donick Cary (who has also written for The Simpsons). The series had humble beginnings as a mobile show before it was picked up and ran for two seasons on Comedy Central.

With online audiences steadily increasing, it’s nice to see that producers are trying to reach out to audiences in more ways than just streaming content that has been made for other screens. It’ll be interesting to see what successes these types of series have and who else starts creating fictional webisodes.

Tags: television, video, webisodes

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Broadcasting, Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.