From the nets to the net
The new NBC comedy “30 Rock” depicts life behind the scenes at a comedy sketch program called “The Girlie Show.”
Viewers won’t actually see many “Girlie Show” sketches. But that doesn’t mean they won’t exist. They’ll be written, produced and available for viewing on the network’s NBC.com Web site.
This was news to Tina Fey, the creator, producer and star of “30 Rock,” who was in Radio City Music Hall in May as her network’s chief executive made the announcement. "I was standing in the back of the upfronts when Jeff Zucker was like, 'You'll never see the sketches on the show, but you will see them online." I was like, "Oh. We've got to write them and just shoot them for online?'"
In fact, every NBC series will soon have what Zucker called “a broadband component” so that fans can jump on their high-speed Internet lines and enjoy even more comedy/drama/reality from their favorite shows. As of last year, more than half of American homes with Internet access had gone broadband.
Not all those online videos will necessarily be great TV. But look for a lot more webisodes and online extras this season.
NBC began airing special stand-alone webisodes of its Emmy-nominated sitcom “The Office” earlier this year. Three are online so far, all chapters in a serial called “The Accountants,” in which bean counters amusingly quiz employees about a missing $3,000. Another 27 Offi-sodes are in the works.
“Friday Night Lights,” the promising high school football drama, will stream a weekly episode exclusively to the Web. An animated comic book will be published online featuring the characters on “Heroes,” ordinary people who discover they have superpowers.
And, as widely reported last week, NBC will order webisodes featuring the two stars of “Nobody’s Watching,” the pilot the WB passed on last season but which got uploaded to the YouTube site and was viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Innertube, at the CBS.com site, will offer a separate story from the small town of Jericho, Kan., which is cut off from the outside world on the new CBS show “Jericho.”
Beyond that, Innertube is focused on reality TV. It currently is airing a reality show, “InTurns,” based on young people who work at the CBS soap “As the World Turns.”
There also are “Big Brother” replays, call-in shows for fans of “BB” and “Survivor” and an entertaining Flash cartoon narrated by “Survivor” host Jeff Probst, based on a true story about his scuba dive gone awry.
ABC.com’s biggest tie-in is “The Lost Experience,” an interactive game based on the popular thriller “Lost.” It kicked off May 2 when a clue was dropped on that night’s episode of “Lost” and is still going on.
Fox seems more interested in programming for mobile phones than for the Web. It even trademarked the term “mobisode” to describe the kind of video offerings it will create for select wireless devices. Last year it made “24: The Conspiracy,” a series featuring the storylines but not the actors of “24.” In April select cell users could download mobisodes based on a parallel storyline to another Fox thriller, “Prison Break.”
The CW network, assembled out of the ashes of the WB and UPN networks, is a little behind the eight ball; as of this moment, the CW.com wasn’t even an active Web site. But once online, the CW plans to offer webisodes and extras for most of its programs, many of them introduced by “America’s Next Top Model” winner Yoanna House. She was hired to serve as the host of CW’s digital content.
The Web also is starting to be used as a place where viewers can catch previous episodes they missed. “The Greg Behrendt Show,” featuring daily relationship advice from the co-author of He’s Just Not That Into You, will be streamed at KSHB.com, the Web home of the local station where the show airs.
Finally, in the old-school division, classic TV shows are already streaming online for free at AOL’s in2TV.com and Bravo’s BrilliantButCancelled.com. Coming soon: NBC’s DotComedy.com, with classic sitcoms. Sadly, in2TV doesn’t work with Macs.
