(originally written for ALARM Magazine in July 2007)
Recently, Sony Television Distribution teamed up with MySpace to unveil a novel little venture, the “Minisode Network,” a broadband video channel that features five to seven minute cut-down versions of classic TV shows like Starsky and Hutch, Who’s The Boss? and The Facts of Life.
As one of several major distributors in the television industry, Sony has a vast library of TV shows at its disposal. Distributors like Sony can bring in revenue from these shows in a variety of ways including licensing them to cable networks and local affiliates for air, or selling the series direct to consumers on DVD.
However, there are many classic TV shows that, no matter how fond our memories of them are, don’t hold up quite as well as we remember. As a result, they don’t command big enough audiences to make them worth licensing out to cable networks, and the DVD sales, while probably still profitable, are less than stellar.
Enter The Minisode Network, an interesting new approach to monetizing shows that might otherwise sit on a distributor’s shelf. Hosted by Myspace, and sponsored by Honda, the minisodes attempt to cut down entire shows to just a few minutes, usually by completely eliminating the B story and boiling it down to major plot points. You get the set up, climax and resolution quick and easy. Plus, you can relive your nostalgia for a show like T.J. Hooker without having to actually sit through an entire episode.
Of course, some of these ‘minisodes’ are more successful than others. The action series tend come out well, because older cop shows like Starsky and Hutch were infinitely simpler than their modern counterparts like The Shield. In fact, they kind of make you wonder how they were able to drag the story out over an hour in the first place. But, while it’s fun for a moment to remember The Facts of Life, cutting comedies down to just the basic plot points tends to eliminate a lot of the actual jokes (and there weren’t a ton of laughs to go around in some of these shows to begin with).
Nevertheless, the whole experience is fun, and it’s an interesting entry in the field of innovative new things we can do with traditional television in a youtube world. It’s also a prime example of a new trend that has sprung from television trying to gain viewers across new technologies, something often referred to as “Frankenstein-ing” TV content. You take apart existing content, and then put it back together in new and interesting ways.
One of the new series that has been very successful in using this strategy to keep up with viewers across multiple platforms is NBC’s The Office. In addition to traditional “deleted scenes” available on the DVD releases, NBC also offered “Producer’s Cuts” of the show for download on iTunes, with many of the bonus scenes included in the episode. Then, in order to attract viewers to reruns on air when the show was between seasons, the network created what they dubbed “newpeats,” old episodes re-edited and extended to include new scenes, and B stories pulled from other episodes.
Other networks have created entirely new content springing from their series for distribution through the internet and video-on-demand channels. F/X created mini-episodes of The Shield and Rescue Me for distribution to internet portals, featuring short subplots that take place in between seasons. For the most recent season of Big Love, HBO featured a series of five minute shorts on their on-demand channel that highlighted some of the characters back stories as much as ten years before the series takes place.
Similarly, many networks have released short “webisodes” featuring side plots and additional content for hit shows like Heroes and Battlestar Galactica on their network websites. In some cases, you can even go online to watch entire, never aired episodes of cancelled series like The Black Donnellys and Jericho. In a fascinating twist, after being pulled from the air, Jericho was later un-cancelled due to pressure from enthusiastic internet fans.
All of this adds up to good news for viewers. Television networks and distributors are scrambling to keep our attention on television, online, and on our mobile devices. The result is an abundance of content for any show out there. Across all genres – sci-fi, sports, soap operas, news, sitcoms – fans can find web shorts, behind-the-scenes extras, podcasts, sneak peeks of upcoming episodes, and all sorts of on-demand and downloadable content.
But there is one constant amid all of these new offerings that remains as true on your laptop as it is in your living room: content is king. Innovative digital strategies, and new kinds of on-demand offerings can help networks reach viewers through new technology, but a terrible show is a terrible show, no matter how you slice it. Cool new ideas to repackage existing shows in original ways will only help networks that start with quality writing, acting and production.
Recently, Sony Television Distribution teamed up with MySpace to unveil a novel little venture, the “Minisode Network,” a broadband video channel that features five to seven minute cut-down versions of classic TV shows like Starsky and Hutch, Who’s The Boss? and The Facts of Life.
As one of several major distributors in the television industry, Sony has a vast library of TV shows at its disposal. Distributors like Sony can bring in revenue from these shows in a variety of ways including licensing them to cable networks and local affiliates for air, or selling the series direct to consumers on DVD.
However, there are many classic TV shows that, no matter how fond our memories of them are, don’t hold up quite as well as we remember. As a result, they don’t command big enough audiences to make them worth licensing out to cable networks, and the DVD sales, while probably still profitable, are less than stellar.
Enter The Minisode Network, an interesting new approach to monetizing shows that might otherwise sit on a distributor’s shelf. Hosted by Myspace, and sponsored by Honda, the minisodes attempt to cut down entire shows to just a few minutes, usually by completely eliminating the B story and boiling it down to major plot points. You get the set up, climax and resolution quick and easy. Plus, you can relive your nostalgia for a show like T.J. Hooker without having to actually sit through an entire episode.
Of course, some of these ‘minisodes’ are more successful than others. The action series tend come out well, because older cop shows like Starsky and Hutch were infinitely simpler than their modern counterparts like The Shield. In fact, they kind of make you wonder how they were able to drag the story out over an hour in the first place. But, while it’s fun for a moment to remember The Facts of Life, cutting comedies down to just the basic plot points tends to eliminate a lot of the actual jokes (and there weren’t a ton of laughs to go around in some of these shows to begin with).
Nevertheless, the whole experience is fun, and it’s an interesting entry in the field of innovative new things we can do with traditional television in a youtube world. It’s also a prime example of a new trend that has sprung from television trying to gain viewers across new technologies, something often referred to as “Frankenstein-ing” TV content. You take apart existing content, and then put it back together in new and interesting ways.
One of the new series that has been very successful in using this strategy to keep up with viewers across multiple platforms is NBC’s The Office. In addition to traditional “deleted scenes” available on the DVD releases, NBC also offered “Producer’s Cuts” of the show for download on iTunes, with many of the bonus scenes included in the episode. Then, in order to attract viewers to reruns on air when the show was between seasons, the network created what they dubbed “newpeats,” old episodes re-edited and extended to include new scenes, and B stories pulled from other episodes.
Other networks have created entirely new content springing from their series for distribution through the internet and video-on-demand channels. F/X created mini-episodes of The Shield and Rescue Me for distribution to internet portals, featuring short subplots that take place in between seasons. For the most recent season of Big Love, HBO featured a series of five minute shorts on their on-demand channel that highlighted some of the characters back stories as much as ten years before the series takes place.
Similarly, many networks have released short “webisodes” featuring side plots and additional content for hit shows like Heroes and Battlestar Galactica on their network websites. In some cases, you can even go online to watch entire, never aired episodes of cancelled series like The Black Donnellys and Jericho. In a fascinating twist, after being pulled from the air, Jericho was later un-cancelled due to pressure from enthusiastic internet fans.
All of this adds up to good news for viewers. Television networks and distributors are scrambling to keep our attention on television, online, and on our mobile devices. The result is an abundance of content for any show out there. Across all genres – sci-fi, sports, soap operas, news, sitcoms – fans can find web shorts, behind-the-scenes extras, podcasts, sneak peeks of upcoming episodes, and all sorts of on-demand and downloadable content.
But there is one constant amid all of these new offerings that remains as true on your laptop as it is in your living room: content is king. Innovative digital strategies, and new kinds of on-demand offerings can help networks reach viewers through new technology, but a terrible show is a terrible show, no matter how you slice it. Cool new ideas to repackage existing shows in original ways will only help networks that start with quality writing, acting and production.
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