Tom Green – From MTV to Web TV to TV

By 2001, Tom Green’s career was making a steady descent away from its peak towards the pool of celebrities that no longer command significance. Pop culture’s short-lived shock comic surrendered the “Ohmygod! He didn’t just do that!” title to Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass boys while moving onto star and cameo in a handful of films that ranged from mediocre to terrible. His star was slowly waning from the Hollywood spotlight.

But since June 2006, Green’s career has been waxing significance on the web, and might just shoot back into the mainstream.

The comic has just signed a deal with Debmar-Mercury for his late-night, live, internet talkshow, The Channel (Tilzy.TV page) to be made available for syndication to television stations in January 2008. ###

For the past year-and-a-half, Green has been inviting celebrities into his home in the Hollywood Hills to tape live shows. Several months before the technology would be developed to easily facilitate such a process – Justin.tv, UStream, or BlogTV – the comic ingrained in old media was creating an online, communal viewing experience, where internet audiences were able to participate through chatrooms, IMs, and Skype.

Still, Green has aspirations to regain some prominent placement on old TV. While his show reportedly draws 20,000 viewers live and 650,000 streams within several days of airing, the deal allows him to show heads of major networks what kind of audience he’s capable of on a traditional medium.

The deal also allows Green to get some help on board. Expect better-coordinated and produced shows with more frequent and prominent guest appearances. Of course, the show will still be streamed online, from his living room. The Channel might soon be venturing into popular culture, but it’s host hasn’t forgotten where its home is. At least not yet.