Fast, Cheap & Made For The Web

Reality TV first shook up television by dramatically lowering the cost of production (and many would say standards) of prime time programming. Lately we've seen several attempts at taking user generated content posted online and broadcasting it on TV (Current, Acceptable TV, Web Junk, etc.). While this, too, is cheaper television, we're now also seeing Hollywood types just bypass television all together to create original programming for the Web…again. This happened first in the late 90s - remember Steven Spielberg's POP.com? There were a slew of high quality broadband sites during the first bubble with loads of professionally produced content. But this was before the social media era of MySpace and YouTube. Hollywood appears ready to jump back in as evidenced by Michael Eisner's online series Prom Queen and today's announcement from Hearst and FOX that they will be developing a broadband seriesfor CosmoGIRL!. From the press release:

"The first collaboration is a dramatic series for cosmogirl.com focusing on the lives of three best friends in their junior year of high school. The twice-weekly, 2-3 minute webisodes will highlight relatable themes and many of the storylines will be taken from user emails and dramatized for the series. The series will air on cosmogirl.com and other destinations, to be announced."

They will also be developing original programming for Popular Mechanics…The press release doesn't appear to be online yet. Thanks Lindsay!

Update: You can read more about Hearst/FOX in this article from AdAge.com, reg. required, and more about the general trend in BusinessWeek.

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