in to Easy to Assemble and Ikea Heights—
both of which are based at the Ikea store
in Burbank, Calif. Seriously.
Independent Spirit
Web television has been growing in
popularity since Scott Zakarin’s The Spot
made its debut as the first Web TV show
in 1995. It was the advent of You Tube
that, in late 2005, finally pushed the
industry into overdrive. Making content
easier to share and enabling phenomena
like the fake video blog-cum-series Lone-
lygirl15 to attain viral status, You Tube
and its flood of offerings persuaded
movie studios and talent agencies that
this was a business worth getting into.
The increase in available money and
professional experience has brought
improvements in the production values
of Web programming and attracted big
talent both in front of and behind the
camera. Friends star Lisa Kudrow fol-
lowed her brilliant HBO show The Come-
back with an equally great online series,
Web Therapy, which was recently picked
up by Showtime and will debut later
this year. Comedic heavy hitters Will
Ferrell and Judd Apatow launched their
website Funny or Die (FOD) as a kind of
“You Tube” for comedy, producing half
its offerings in-house and acquiring the
other half from comedy professionals
and gifted amateurs across the globe.
According to FOD’s creative director,
Andrew Steele—a former head writer for
Saturday Night Live—Ferrell and Apatow
launched their website for the sheer
creative freedom the Web provides. Rob
Corddry (The Daily Show, Hot Tub Time
Machine), creator and star of the Web
series, Children’s Hospital, concurs, “The
Web became the place where you could
do anything you wanted to do.”
While the Web offers freedom to
these showbiz vets and their participa-
tion has brought greater credibility to
the Web, the good news is, little of the
medium’s openness seems to have been
lost in the exchange.
“We believe that independent content is and always will be just as good at
finding an audience as the network and
studio fare,” says Brady Brim-DeForest,
executive producer of the Streamy
Awards, which honor excellence in
“The point is
definitely to
make the funniest
joke in the
shortest amount
of time.”
In 2007, Will Ferrell and “Pearl” starred in
The Landlord, a hugely popular pilot video
that launched Funny or Die.
original Web programming. “If you look
at some of the most popular shows out
there in the Web television world, they’re
not necessarily studio-produced.”
One of the biggest success stories
from the independent arena is The Guild,
a Web sitcom about online gamers cre-
ated by Felicia Day (Buffy the Vampire
Slayer). Day not only writes, produces
and stars in The Guild but also has
blazed an entrepreneurial trail for Web
TV, discovering new and unconven-
tional ways to get her show made and
seen. Though The Guild’s first season
was supported by fans’ financial con-
tributions, Sprint has sponsored sub-
sequent seasons and Day has partnered
with Microsoft, Xbox Live, i Tunes and
Amazon.com to distribute her show
across multiple platforms.
Back to the Future
Though many speculate that the rise of
Web TV may be a harbinger of conventional television’s demise, at the moment
the two are playing together nicely.
“The Web is forming a perfect place
for minor league development for film
and television,” says FOD’s Steele. He
should know—FOD brought the best of
its Web offerings to HBO last spring in
“Funny or Die Presents.” Corddry’s
Children’s Hospital, which he created while
riding an Amtrak train, has also made the
jump to conventional TV and its second
season begins airing this summer on
Cartoon Network’s nighttime programming block for grown-ups, Adult Swim. In
addition to its quirky sensibility, another
Web influence the show will retain is its
shorter, commercial-free format.
“It’s really conducive to comedy,”
Corddry says of the shorter episodes.
“The point is definitely to make the funni-
est joke in the shortest amount of time.”
With literally thousands of new shows
being produced each week around the
globe, it’s impossible to predict what the
next great programs will be. Industry
experts suggest the best strategy for
catching the best of the Web is to stay
tuned to networks like Crackle.com,
NextNewNetworks.com, Revision3.com and
MyDamnChannel.com.
As the Streamy Awards’ Brim-
DeForest says, “Unlike the world of
television where you have a very finite
scope, the world of Web television
seems almost endless.”
Endless content and limitless
potential, streaming 24/7 on a com-
puter near you.
