Making the step into web series is a natural move for Alloy Entertainment. This is the studio behind TV’s Gossip Girl and the forthcoming The Vampire Diaries and films like Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. For parent company Alloy Media + Marketing, its entertainment arm is just a piece of its play to conquer the young adult market, a market it could be credited with redefining.
At Alloy, they prefer to think of themselves as developing properties rather than shows. Most of their shows after all begin as teen novels (some would call them “chick lit”), often as a series of novels, before being further developed for other media. The book titles like Pretty Little Liars, The Clique, The A-List, The Vampire Diaries and Private seem custom made for their audience.
I spoke to Alloy Entertainment’s EVP, Josh Bank, who oversees the property internally and led the development of the Private web series. Starting as novel series, Bank pointed out, gives the web series a loyal built-in fan base even before it launches. “These fans are passi
onate,” said Bank, “even Photoshopping themselves into the book covers.” “We love having a passionate fan base because it serves as a great way to stir up interest in the web series,” he added.The length of web series episodes continues to be tinkered with across the industry, but for Private, they are staying in the popular 4-6 minute range for now. It’s not a lot of time to develop strong dramatic characters on screen.
“Our lead character Reed Brennan (Kelsey Sanders) falls in love with a boy named Thomas (Brant Daugherty) and we have a short window to sell that relationship,” Bank noted. “It’s something we worked on with the writers to make the viewer has an emotional resinant experience in that time frame.” He did add that the length isn’t something they are locked on, potentially being adjusted as viewing patterns emerge. “This will be a growing experience for us to see where drop off occurs, if it occurs,” said Bank.
Bank also added that the company isn’t just focused on developing out novels. “Our team in New York is really coming up with ideas for all manner of media—books, TV shows, and now the Web for the first time,” he said. “We are content shop, if you will, creating IP (intellectual property).”
What About Marketing?
There’s also the book retailers, where the repackaged novels featuring cast members from the web series get prominent displays. Alloy Media + Marketing is said to be putting a sizable media spend behind the series. And perhaps it’s the books themselves that justify the spend, driving interest in what is a tangible product with broadly understood metrics—book sales.
The series will still face web TV’s more ‘fluid’ metrics, like online view counts and engagement charts, to make the decision of whether or not to do another season of Private. It still after all, has sponsors (Neutrogena and Johnson & Johnson) to keep happy. Either way, the series by design could end up a financial win right from the onset, whether or not new fans jump on board. For that, time will tell. The series will run exclusively on Teen.com with three new episodes per week through September 25th when it may see a broader online and mobile release.
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