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AS
creator of L.A. Law and Hill Street Blues,
Steven Bochco packed lots of drama into 60 minutes. Now
he’s trying to entertain in closer to 60 seconds.
Bochco
is joining the masses of wannabe online video moguls
with Café Confidential, an Internet series that’s all
about brevity and punch. The 44-clip collection, which
premiered recently on video site Metacafé, features
people in their teens or 20s telling lighthearted,
semiconfessional stories.
“The
Internet is at its best when it distracts its users,”
Bochco said. “You’re waiting at the bus stop, you’re in
between classes, you have 20 minutes—so you go online
and you have some fun.”
The
legal fight Viacom Inc. launched against Google Inc.’s
YouTube recently highlighted the fear and loathing the
Internet has generated in some corners of Hollywood.
But
Bochco, former Walt Disney Co. chief executive Michael
Eisner and former MTV Networks president Herb Scannell
represent a new wave of venturesome Hollywood players
diving into the new medium. Eisner has invested in
video-sharing site Veoh Networks Inc. and online-video
studio Vuguru, and Scannell’s Next New Networks is
creating Web TV channels.
These
creators aren’t turning only to YouTube, the leading
video site that Viacom has sued for letting users post
copyrighted shows and movies. They’re partnering with
online outfits such as Metacafé Inc. and Revver Inc.—or
starting their own.
“If you
spend your life chasing your consumers and filing
lawsuits, that’s a fool’s errand,” Bochco said. “At the
end of the day, the consumer always wins. So, do you
want to be right and spend five years and millions of
dollars in legal fees to prove it? Or do you want to be
successful?”
Bochco
decided last fall to try his hand at online
entertainment. And Palo Alto-based Metacafé wanted to
augment its amateur videos with professional work, which
advertisers prefer.
After a
few conversations, Metacafé agreed to underwrite the
cost of Bochco’s project and split the advertising
revenue with him. They would not disclose the financial
terms.
Spending
on Internet video advertising is expected to reach $775
million this year and grow to $2.9 billion by 2010,
according to research firm EMarketer Inc. That’s a
fraction of the roughly $67-billion spent on TV ads.
That
hasn’t deterred Bochco, who saw the project as a way to
create entertainment outside the confines of traditional
Hollywood.
He came
up with a series of videos, culled from more than 100
interviews in which people talk about weird family
members, their first sexual experiences, their worst
dates, crazy days at work or embarrassing moments.
Metacafé
is betting that Café Confidential will spur amateur
auteurs into submitting their own versions. “The idea is
that this becomes an electronic online campfire around
which we sit and tell stories,” Bochco said. “I’m the
camp counselor.”
Bochco
has TV nailed, but he’s trying to learn what makes a
good online video.
One of
his early favorites in Café Confidential features an
attractive young blond recounting the time she was
traveling abroad and couldn’t find a bathroom. She
relieved herself in a tucked-away spot in a parking lot,
but a family with small children caught her in the act.
“A good
anecdote is like a good joke in terms of length,
structure and punch line,” Bochco said. “Here I am in
the most embarrassing moment of my life—that’s the punch
line. A lot of people don’t know when to stop. Find the
punch line and go out with that.”
Bochco
knows what he’s talking about. The 63-year-old,
silver-haired producer won 10 Emmy Awards for his
television work—six for Hill Street Blues, three
for L.A. Law and one for NYPD Blue.
But his
Web project differs vastly. TV shows are generally
tightly scripted, feature casts of recognizable stars
and cost as much as $3 million an episode. His online
videos are loose and spontaneous, feature unknown people
drawn from public places around
L.A. and cost less than $100,000 combined.
“The
charm of this medium lies in its enormous spontaneity,”
Bochco said, “because these are completely unscripted
and sometimes, for a geezer like me, shockingly candid.”
He
admitted that he doesn’t find the typical YouTube fare
charming but added, “I have a jaded palate.”
Metacafé
CEO Erick Hachenburg agreed with Bochco, saying his site
publishes only the best 10 percent of clips submitted by
users.
“We’re
not a video-sharing site” like YouTube, Hachenburg said.
“We want to be more of an online video destination where
you can reliably go to see the best videos. And we’re
hoping to seed that with professional content.”
It also
has a fraction of the traffic. YouTube drew 34 million
US visitors in February, compared with 4 million for
Metacafé, according to research firm ComScore Networks
Inc.
Bochco
isn’t sure how people will respond to his videos. But he
believes he has to try to cross the bridge between old
media and new.
“Maybe
as this evolves, it will take us to places we hadn’t
anticipated,” he said. |
