Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Many have blogged about this NY Times article about how "Nobody's Watching" may "return from the dead" because 300,000 people have watched the pilot on Youtube.

It could happen. They said the same thing about Global Frequency, and that was before YouTube.

What struck me more, though, was creator Bill Lawrence's comment that "This is a much better way to tell" if a show should go on the air or not. Air the sucker on YouTube. Check out if it catches fire.

Now granted, the YouTube audience is not the same as the US television audience, and a show that gets 300,000 hard-core fans can still flop massively on TV, where 300,000 fans is a rounding error. (On Canadian TV, it's called a "hit.") But it does seem that net execs should make a habit of releasing their pilots on the Net if they're not sure whether to greenlight or not.

Or, hell, they could actually air the pilots and then do the American Idol thing and see how many people are willing to call a 900 number to vote which shows to keep on the air....

3:56 PM

1 Comments:

Way off topic, but it's been driving me nuts since I started reading (and enjoying) your blog -- how they heck did you end up in Montreal?

By  The Film Diva, at 7:29 PM  

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