The great TV shows of the 21st Century will be made for the networked and connected generation (Gen-C)

TV veterans switch to MySpace

The creative minds behind such TV shows as Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life are launching a web-based show, hoping to find the artistic freedom online that they say is lacking on broadcast networks.

Some broadcast is good stuff, but we are still at the mercy of the vagaries of fashion and commissioning editors who are only interested in ratings.

As one senior broadcast grandee said to me recently - Andy Duncan is not Jeremy Issacs

So there is no wonder that creativity will seek those places and spaces where it can thrive unfettered rather than be at the mercy of the ardent followers of fashion.

The show, called Quarterlife will make its debut on November 11 on MySpace and will be paired with its own social networking site that will include story extras as well as career, romance and other information for the show's young audience.

Centred on a group of college graduates, the show started as a pilot for an ABC series called 1/4 Life. It aired once in 2005 and was pulled because of creative differences between the network and creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick

Remember Howard Stern left for online/digital radio about a century ago and remember Mobile the 7th Mass Media is to internet like TV is to radio

With the explosion of online video and the migration to the web of stars such as Will Ferrell, Harry Shearer and Bill Murray, Herskovitz and Zwick decided to resurrect the show and give it a cyber twist.

The TV veterans were also attracted by the chance to have full creative control of the project and retain ownership, which could produce greater profit for them if the show becomes popular. "It's a gamble," Herskovitz said. "We want to prove there is another way to independently create and distribute content."

The show's 36 episodes will air exclusively on MySpace, which has more than 110 million users worldwide. Additional content, including character profiles, will also appear on MySpace, which is owned by News Corp.

So how does the money go round then?

Each episode will be about eight minutes long with two new episodes each week. The producers and MySpace will share revenue from ads that will run in the video. Additional revenue will come from product-placement deals

It would be good to see other more creative business ideas and business models. In our book "Communities Dominate Brands" we developed a view all... (sigh) those years ago that

the once separate provinces of innovation, technology, economic activity, culture and communities are pulling together and converging into one another in increasingly intimate and more powerful combinations. Thus creating new opportunities for how we make and exchange information, knowledge, and culture. And in my mind, this sits at the very heart of understanding the future we are living in - today

Its no longer about push advertising, its about embedded information and content, where the advertising is the content and the content is the advertising. The role of advertising has shifted in the value chain. The smart money is about how you deliver it.

And lets think about this: that a media industry struggling to hold onto its core audience in the face of competition from all other media may be forced to take greater risks to accommodate consumer interests.

And in many ways this migration to the "networked power of engagement" via the internet demonstrates that we are witnessing the shift from individualised and pesonalised media consumption towards media consumption as a networked practice.

And as Jeff Jarvis wrote

The power of participation comes not from destroying commercial culture but writing over it, modding it, amending it, expanding it, adding greater diversity of perspective, and then recirculating it, feeding it back into the mainstream media

Ashley Highfield of the BBC believes

Future TV may be unrecognisable from today, defined not just by linear TV channels, packaged and scheduled by television executives, but instead will resemble more of a kaleidoscope, thousands of streams of content, some indistinguishable as actual channels. These streams will mix together broadcasters’ content and programs, and our viewers contributions. At the simplist level – audiences will want to to organise and reorganise content the way they want it. They’ll add comments to our programmes, vote on them, and generally mess about with them. But at another level, audiences will want to create these streams of video themselves from scratch, with or without or help. At this end of the spectrum, the traditional "monologue broadcaster" to "grateful viewer" relationship will breakdown

So TV veterans switiching to Myspace is part of this colossal shift, in culture, media, and economics.

As John Rogers, Head writier of Survivor wrote

I would put my next pilot out onto the internet in a heartbeat. Want five more come buy the boxed set

The compare that with TV news 'a turn-off for young and ethnic minorities' - whilst the BBC fears lost generation as audiences dwindle.

The media watchdog Ofcom warned yesterday that one of the only ways to get young people and ethnic minorities to engage with television news might be to sweep away impartiality rules, ushering in opinionated bulletins and more politicised news channels.

There is no middle of the road on the internet - its a difficult one. The need for impartiality, but when that impartiality is for what ever reason tampered with, trust lies like a bloody body on the floor.

Ofcom said that discarding restrictions for broadcasters other than the main public service channels might lead to a wider range of voices and help re-engage viewers turned off by the homogeneity of views elsewhere. It said the requirement for impartiality may have "fostered a middle-of-the-road culture" in mainstream news.

But the issue is bigger and deeper than a generartion lost to the Internet?

There was "firm evidence" of disengagement from mainstream news sources by some sections of the young and people from ethnic minority backgrounds. Ofcom said the trend was accelerating. The number of 16- to 24-year-olds who say they only follow news when something important is happening has risen from 33% to 50% in five years.

The amount of television news they watch has fallen to an average of less than 40 hours a year, compared with around 90 hours a year for the wider population. Almost two thirds of young people said much of the news was not relevant to them, up from 44% in 2002.

The BBC's deputy director general Mark Byford told Ofcom there was a danger of producing a "lost generation" who might never come to public service TV news. "If we look at linear TV news: the young people increasingly don't touch it," he said.

Disengagement is about context and relevance. My fear is that there is in fact a massive wrench in society as we have not nurtured society in the same way as we have nurtured profits, efficiency and the the commercial context.

Maggie broke the Unions, now that may have been a good thing? But - in doing so she broke huge swathes of communities up and down the country. Now that's not a good thing.

Perhaps that may be a bit off piste from TV and Myspace. But it is about macro changes about civil life, engagement and disengagement with society. Thatcher said that "there is no thing as society," which is perhaps why her son became a mercenary? But there is such a thing as society if you choose that people matter over economics, war and the realm How do we engage the digital generation?

This also brings me to think about the Rolling Stones, Elvis, the Doors, the Beatles, Little Richard, The Grateful Dead, Woodstock and the Isle of White. Bands, gatherings and experiences that were the shock troops challenging the morality and social structiure of the day and then - sought to tear them down. The young forge the world in their image. Music today is largely toothless, commoditised, do we get police aching to get on stage and give Kylie a good kicking? No. Only in America where Janet Jackson revealed her nipple that the sky fell in. But believe you and me, its a far cry from Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and team.

And today - you can even get Dennis the Menace straight to your mobile Now then, whoever thought that would happen 40 years ago?

Comments

[Kara-Hannah]

Just wanted to make sure you didnt forget about blogTV.com, where the future of television is already HERE!

Check it out, you will love it!