Michael Learmonth writes in The Silicon Alley Insider, “It's hard to find a serious producer of Web content who will admit to harboring hope that TV will come calling. Michael Eisner sold Prom Queen into international TV syndication, but that's considered an outlier, not the core of a Web business model. So what is that model? Create a modestly budgeted show, with a narrow audience in mind, that you think would appeal to specific sponsors, like For Your Imagination's DadLabs. Or, create a show expressly for an advertiser, like MSN's In The Motherhood.” The Web-To-TV Dream: Not The Dream, Anymore.
There certainly is an emerging market where the new Internet TV studios, such as 60Frames, can produce on a low budget and look to make their money back entirely online. And no doubt some producers are delighted to bypass networks as gatekeepers to audiences. (Although sponsors and social networks commissioning online shows are emerging as the new gatekeepers.)
However, the overall picture is much more mixed than the headline and post suggest.
What does it mean when we talk about migrating an online show to TV? It can include at least (and this is not an exhaustive list):
1) The actual video transfers from Web to TV
Indie band mockumentary The All-For-Nots, from Eisner's Vuguru studio, is being shown on ManiaTV.
2) Simultaneous release on Web and TV
Again, The All-For-Nots premiered simultaneously online and on cable network HDNet and mobile operator Verizon.
3) Simultaneous production for the Web, with TV in mind
The BBC’s teen division BBC Switch is taking this approach by commissioning shows primarily for the Internet or mobiles that also contain TV quality video. Head of BBC Switch Geoff Goodwin says that with his new online shows, he can take “half an hour of the content to normal broadcast television or radio or YouTube.”
4) Piloting online
Science fiction drama Sanctuary, from the team behind Stargate, built up an Internet following and was commissioned by SciFi Channel for a 13 episode run. (Learmonth argues that the show was actually created as a pilot for SciFi.) The new series was sold on the international television market within weeks and will appear on ITV4.
5) Format sales
As the USA has such a large domestic TV market, perhaps format sales seem less important there. In the UK, producers have made millions from exporting formats – Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and many reality titles.
The All-For-Nots comedy format of a band on tour could well be produced as a sit-com for TV in almost any country. For from being "an outlier," piloting online to bring in a full commission or format sales, both domestic and international, seems entirely possible.
Meanwhile, Eisner predicts, “In the next five years the internet will be the No. 1 distribution method for entertainment.”
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