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November 16, 2007

NBC Picks Up Made For MySpace Show QuarterLife

Duncan Riley

21 comments »

quarterlife.jpgQuarterlife, a made for MySpace TV show that “follows the lives of six twenty-somethings and charts the sometimes excruciating, sometimes comic, often emotional experiences that comprise coming of age as a part of the digital generation” has been picked up by NBC.

The deal is the first time a made for internet program has been picked up by a television network in the United States.

Quarterlife is produced by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, creators of the TV shows My So-Called Life and Thirtysomething.

NBC will air the show from its first episode and will tap into pre-recorded (but yet unaired) episodes, with new episodes put on hold by the writers strike. There is even some suggestion that the purchase by NBC is due to the writers strike; stuck with a diminishing supply of fresh content the theory suggests that television networks will look online and to independent productions to fill the airwaves. If true it’s a new additional benefit from the writers strike for online content creators, who’s smiles continue to widen as the strike goes on.

Trailer for the show below; the lead character Dylan is a video blogger and much of the footage is from that perspective. With mainstream exposure of video blogging on NBC video startups such as Kyte.tv, Ustream, Justin.tv and others along with a YouTube might also end up getting a boost as well.


Quarterlife Trailer

Add to My Profile | More Videos

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MySpace
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(via Reuters)

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. December 9th, 2007 at 4:32 pm

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  1. Alan Wilensky

    November 16th, 2007 at 10:19 pm

    “…and charts the sometimes excruciating, sometimes comic, often emotional experiences…”

    Yes, I can see the excruciating part coming down the road here. So, we can assume this will be no, “Citizen Kane”? Hmmm?

  2. Loren

    November 16th, 2007 at 10:24 pm

    I bet the striking show writers will like this.

  3. Duncan Riley

    November 16th, 2007 at 10:38 pm

    Alan
    I’d think that’s a fair call :-)

  4. Faramarz

    November 16th, 2007 at 10:38 pm

    Thanks Duncan. I did not even know about these guys. You just made me watch the 3 parts entirely, and be refreshingly pleased that the hottie from an episode of Californication plays a recurring role in it. awesome!

  5. Aaron

    November 16th, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    Didn’t they pitch it to ABC before it was a “made for MySpace TV show”? Bit of a grey area to be saying that the “deal is the first time a made for internet program has been picked up by a television network in the United States.”

  6. Frank Sinton

    November 16th, 2007 at 11:52 pm

    According to PaidContent, this web show only became a web show because it wasn’t originally picked up by the studios.

    We have been enjoying an uptick and the focus on videoblogging is nice. :) I’m not sure why you listed the live streaming services? The core videoblogging services are sites like Blip.tv, Mefeedia.com, and others who focus on episodic video / video series. I’ve already had a few network execs tell me they use our service to help discover new web shows.

  7. Alex Michaels

    November 17th, 2007 at 12:57 am

    Interesting, but let’s not forget that the creators of this show are Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, creators of the TV shows My So-Called Life and Thirtysomething.

    They are very talented, but also, they are already part of “Hollywood.”

  8. Duncan Riley

    November 17th, 2007 at 1:23 am

    Frank
    The live services offer video clip services as well…if you check out what Chris Pirillo is doing with Ustream as a good example.

  9. www.carversation.com

    November 17th, 2007 at 2:13 am

    that is so cool

  10. Jurado

    November 17th, 2007 at 3:51 am

    That’s right and its going to go after the O’Really ratings!!! lol

  11. Steve Ballmer

    November 17th, 2007 at 9:04 am

    Quarter life …
    Is it about you Duncan?
    lol
    I kill me!

  12. Mayank Kumar

    November 17th, 2007 at 9:08 am

    This is a good news. Also note that creators like lonelygirl15 in youtube have been paid by youtube for providing with popular videos there. So, apart from web acting as a distribution channel, it has also enabled original content to take on content from traditional media.

  13. Shane

    November 17th, 2007 at 11:18 am

    quarterlife is not “made for Myspace TV”, though it does play there. quarterlife has its own site at quarterlife.com where you can watch the episodes on a larger, higher-quality player. quarterlife.com is also a social networking site for artists, and offers nice features not found on myspace, including videocommenting and a widget called “The Portfolio”.

  14. Vance

    November 17th, 2007 at 11:53 am

    @ Shane - Spoken like a true corporate cog ;)

    I watched 2/3 of the first episode and wondered: why the heck are they splitting one episode into three parts? (With credits at the end of each part!) It really interrupts the flow.

    I would like to see this show distributed via Miro or iTunes for free. Though, that definitely won’t happen since NBC will need to inject some DRM to please shareholders (nix Miro) and NBC has had a recent tiff with iTunes (nix iTunes).

    It would be nice if the NBC direct program worked on Macs and they distributed this show through that channel too…

  15. Frank Sinton

    November 17th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

    Duncan - yes, we have seen video clip feeds from Operator11, Ustream and others. But i think there is an important market differentiator between live shows / clips versus original web shows. It is the difference between primetime TV and late night TV. I see quarterlife being closer to the former…

  16. Paul Kontonis

    November 17th, 2007 at 1:27 pm

    A much earlier show than Quarterlife to go from internet to TV was Man and Wife, http://www.reelpopblog.com/200.....up_fa.html
    You can still the online show at http://www.manandwife.tv
    They got picked up in early June and are in TV production right now.

  17. Bill Cammack

    November 17th, 2007 at 3:58 pm

    +1 to the people that mentioned that this show was made for MSM initially, got rejected, reworked (according to other posts/articles/interviews), and THEN posted to the internet.

    Besides the fact that Paul points out above that http://www.manandwive.tv got picked up before Quarterlife did, the title “made for internet program” doesn’t accurately tell the story of what’s going on here. It’s not like “Something To Be Desired” or “The Burg” or “Rocketboom” or “JetSetShow” got picked up. This was a well-funded program, put together by television veterans (Thirtysomething).

    Anyway, congrats to them, but this is no rags-to-riches story, to be sure.

  18. kappy

    November 18th, 2007 at 5:06 pm

    I only watched the first 20 seconds and I have one word: LAME.

  19. Kat

    November 18th, 2007 at 10:42 pm

    Um yeah, CBS beat them to this a few weeks ago by getting the rights for We Need Girlfriends…maybe the difference is WNG will be turned into a real series and not just the web episodes aired on TV.

  20. garrett

    November 19th, 2007 at 8:42 am

    It’s actually the second internet show to be picked up by a mainstream TV channel, We Need Girlfriends was the first — http://teevieo.com/girlfriends.....rren-star/

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