Apple’s recent announcement about the re-launching and re-branding of its video on demand set-top box sent shock waves through the web series community. That is to say, the announcement would have sent shock waves, had so many involved persons not been arguing over who gets to be in the web series club. Web series and web TV are to different animals. One is a new story-telling mechanism unique to its medium; the other is a content distribution system that encompasses all original online video. The question, “What is a web series?” is an interesting one if only for academic reasons; however, it pales in comparison to the larger questions, “What makes online video unique?” and “How can it compete with existing television?” Very soon, web TV will find itself in a fight, a fight for the family living room.
With a major player like Apple stepping into the arena, greater awareness among the consumer buying public will follow. Greater awareness will lead to an increase in demand and an opportunity for other companies to enter the market with competing products that, by necessity, must differentiate themselves from the established players. Offering access to a library of web series could and will be one way to do so. The technology already exists. You can already purchase a low profile PC equipped with a large hard drive, Wi-Fi, and an HDMI output for around $300 dollars. Software such as Boxee, which works on numerous third party systems and computers, is capable of accessing web video. In addition, the company is set to release a stand-alone set-top device made by D-Link. Once developers realize that there is a market for such devices, in other words, that they can make money, competing products will emerge.
Very soon, web series will have to compete directly with broadcast and cable television. The good news is that they can compete. Consumer level video equipment rivals professional models. Furthermore, YouTube and other video hosting sites already allow uses to upload HD quality video. It is even possible to achieve broadcast-quality live streaming video. The result is that a person with relatively inexpensive consumer level equipment and free online services can rival the quality of major television networks. Pick up season three of The Guild and compare the production values to the average network sitcom; the series looks as good as any network show. In fact, I gave one of my OzGirl DVDs to a friend, who after viewing thought it was a movie. When I explained it was a web series, she was surprised that it was “one of those YouTube things.”
If web series are to survive the coming paradigm shift and transmedia convergence, I do so love a good buzzword, quality is paramount. The reason The Guild looks professional is that it is made by professionals. Within 10 to 20 seconds of watching a new web series, one can tell if it is a professionally made series or a slapped-together amateur production. Anyone can stand in front of a camera for three minutes and give you their opinion, or record their buddies cracking jokes on a couch. Making something that has quality, requires a certain degree of talent, training, and experience. The story, character development, performance, and such must be up to television standards. Fortunately, TV has set the bar so low that the goal is more than attainable.
Like Lindsay Lohan’s next bust for possession, convergence is coming. I predict within the next five years, web series that is to say video content from the web will be largely available and watched on regular television. This does not mean that individuals will stop watching video on their computer or ‘web enabled devise,’ it simply means that web TV will join the ranks of broadcast and cable television and as such directly compete with them for viewership.
(Top photo by Federì)
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Yep, the content viewing experience is shifting from the computer back to the TV in the living room. You are right about quality now for certain web series is stellar. In order for web series of the future to compete against TV, their quality will have to increase, the length will also increase, and the increase in marketing will be exhausting.
Of course, then the budgets increase too like those of low budg TV shows. Soon enough we won’t tell a difference in content produced originally for the web or TV…it’ll all just be considered “content.”
For those wondering about the title, okay so maybe no one is wondering about the title, it is derived from the book “The Gathering Storm”, which coincidentally was released this week last year. The novel is the 12th book in the Wheel of Time series and deals with the intrepid hero gathering the world’s forces in preparation for ‘the final battle.’
It is a good book, and a great series.
For those wondering about the title, okay so maybe no one is wondering about the title, it is derived from the book “The Gathering Storm”, which coincidentally was released this week last year. The novel is the 12th book in the Wheel of Time series and deals with the intrepid hero gathering the world’s forces in preparation for ‘the final battle.’ It just seemed to fit.
It is a good book, and a great series.
i wonder whether i’ll watch TV on my computer or my computer on my TV in five years, or what. the content i watch on each right now is suited for its environment — movies on the big screen while lazing on the couch with a bag of cheetos, or watching short vids on the computer and often typing comments in response, in the home study (also with a bag of cheetos). if i watched some fox news clip on the TV and couldn’t type some comment to inflame glenn beck’s watchers, i’d feel my entertainment experience was lacking.
@mathieas – thank god you didn’t mean this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp76ly2_NoI
though yet another parody of it could be funny.
Good stuff Mathieas. I’d argue that web series are *already* competing with TV in terms of that ever so scarce resource of attention. The convergence should help even out the fight a bit.
There are really two distinct problems in play here—the hardware (or device) issue and the content rights (or access) issue.
The device problem is inevitably getting solved. It’s a race to turn our living rooms into fully internet connected screens. My sleeper pick for the winner in this race is actually the OEMs themselves—Vizio, Sony, Samsung, Panasonic—who are all rabidly trying to roll out decent app interfaces for their new internet-enabled TVs.
The rights issue is way more nuanced and all eyes are on Big Cable (TWC, Comcast, etc) to see what they do with their lofty “TV Everywhere” plan. We may indeed end up with a stratified ecosystem on our TVs (and all our screens) with paywall content and free content.
That free content area is an opportunity for web series to shine, especially the good ones.
It’s hard to argue that Comcast and friends are in any rush to lose their lucrative double-dipping of your $120 cable bill and your $50 internet bill any time soon.
Honestly, Marc? We should be using the rights issues to our advantage. It would be MUCH easier to aggregate cross platform webseries content from multiple independent creators, production companies, and broadband networks like NextNew, Rev3, Koldcast, BabelGum, etc. – putting the “best of the web” in one place on a mobile or connected TV platform – than it ever will be to get the networks and cable channels to play nice together.
Theoretically, you could put several billion views worth of aggregated web content a click away from more convoluted and disparate TV offerings. By giving a consumer everything TV is not, in a simple and intuitive interface, you could significantly tip the “battle for the livingroom” (AND the phone/tablet) firmly in the web’s favor.
If we had resources and organization to match our agility and fervor, we’d be unstoppable. ;)
-Jeff
Jeff – well technically that’s what’s happening. Rev3, NNN, FunnyOrDie, blip.tv etc. are all making inroads with the OEMs and the set-top boxes to make sure that all these web shows are in fact ‘a click away.’
I own a Roku and use it to catch up on web shows from the couch on many nights. I’ll probably use Boxee more once the box itself it out in November.
Anyway, I think it’s already happening in a large part. There are still discovery issues in consumers actually finding shows that they have never heard of especially when those shows are being outspent in marketing dollars 100 to 1 compared to traditional TV.
But ultimately I think the concept of networks will be the value to consumers. Rev3 viewers generally trust that when they head to Rev3 there’s a good chance they are going to like a number of the shows on there. The brand that is Rev3 or FunnyorDie or IFC.com means something to viewers—and will keep them coming back for more.
I agree that progress is being made, Marc, and the examples you cite are good ones. To a broader audience, however, they offer the same limitations as the broadband networks’ online presence: the content is limited to that specific network and is ultimately inefficient for spreading a broader awareness of and familiarity with original online shows.
Revision 3, for example, has a great, passionate audience, but just because someone watches Tekzilla or Diggnation doesn’t mean they’re aware of shows on any other destination. They may never have heard of The Guild, or know that Blip or Dailymotion even exist. Unlike cable, there’s no channel guide-like browsing experience inherent to watching web video that creates awareness by forcing you to scroll through a listing of all shows to get to the ones you’ve heard of. Cross-site accidental discovery of webseries is mostly facilitated by sites like Tubefilter and Clicker and shows like Indie Intertube, which (as you know) have their own discovery and audience building issues to contend with.
I’m happy that I have a choice of distributors that can facilitate placing my shows next to the rest of that distributor’s content on Roku, Boxee, etc. However, when the stakes are as high as television screens and the mobile viewing market, I feel we should be doing more to put shows from across the web in a simple collaborative place that offers a quality sampling of the depth and breadth of our work, not just what exists on any single distribution site.
Just my $.02, anyway.
I guess I’m one of those people who prefer to watch video on a television rather then on a computer screen. I usually do stuff on the computer while I am watching tv so it makes it a lot easier to have the tv on than trying to move a video box around on my monitor.
Also, I don’t really see that much of a difference between webshows and television shows except for the length (and usually the quality). Most webshows look like tv to me. Plus I imagine more people are just used to watching stuff on TV so it will definitely help with viewership.
[...] device or combination of devices ultimately achieves dominance, 2011 will see increased adoption of web-distributed programming on the family [...]
[...] First off, through their design, Junior Varsity appears to be laying the groundwork for not just Best Sketch Comedy Show, but also for an entire comedy network, indicating a plan for the long-term. Bold it may be, but these creators seem driven and are thinking about the big picture, which you must be doing, if you are going to take the time and effort it requires to produce quality images and content, while competing with the rest of the web (soon to be the rest of media). [...]
[...] First off, through their design, Junior Varsity appears to be laying the groundwork for not just Best Sketch Comedy Show, but also for an entire comedy network, indicating a plan for the long-term. Bold it may be, but these creators seem driven and are thinking about the big picture, which you must be doing, if you are going to take the time and effort it requires to produce quality images and content, while competing with the rest of the web (soon to be the rest of media). [...]