MySpace is now a global hub for commissioning, testing and distributing original online shows and formats to television broadcasters around the world.
It has become News Corp’s television production R&D division, with an international footprint.
How? The deal
MySpaceTV already commissions original shows, matches them with sponsors and broadcasts them online. It also has the rights to represent them to US broadcasters. What had been missing was international distribution to broadcasters outside the USA. This was remedied in a deal announced at MIPTV.
Original online shows commissioned by MySpace can now be distributed globally to television, DVD and merchandise under a new deal with distributor ShineReveille.
(Shine is an indie production company set up by Elisabeth Murdoch, daughter of Rupert Murdoch, founder of News Corp, which is MySpace’s ultimate owner.)
MySpace retains both US television distribution and global Internet distribution rights.
At the very least, this deal gives MySpace shows such as Roommates and Special Delivery the chance to be broadcast on television around the world.
But MySpace is putting forward an even larger vision for the future of original online shows. A future that has MySpace at the global heart of it.
Why? The vision
Here are the key quotes from MySpace execs.
Travis Katz, managing director, international:
The move is a play to make shows such as MySpaceTV's "Quarterlife" or "Roommates" available outside of the United States, or create localized versions of the shows, said Travis Katz, managing director of MySpace's international arm.
"Partnering with ShineReveille empowers us to export MySpaceTV content to local TV networks globally -- something we've never been able to in the past," Katz said in a phone interview.
Katz said the migration of Web content to TV was a work in progress that may forge a new model for show production.
The Shine deal, in which the companies will share licensing revenue, gives new generations of budding producers a global platform. "You're (producers) not just stopping with MySpace," Katz said. "You're tapping into a much broader audience." [Reuters]
"MySpace is essentially the world's largest focus group. You can see what resonates with people and then take that content and blow it out worldwide."
Katz said the company is developing original content in all 26 countries in which MySpace operates. Overall, he said MySpaceTV is "in discussions with hundreds" about content partnerships. [Hollywood Reporter]
Jamie Kantrowitz, senior VP marketing and content, MySpace International
"Producers who start off doing Internet content for us will have the opportunity to work with us to turn it into a multiplatform property."
Kantrowitz said the MySpace deal with ShineReveille was a "natural fit" because of the company's success in selling TV program formats around the world, and because of Reveille's experience in original Web content through its past production pact with MSN. [Shine brought The Office from the UK to the USA.]
"One thing we really appreciate about ShineReveille is that it is a company led by producers that are interested in looking at emerging talent and emerging formats -- like we are."
Kantrowitz said MySpace has recently cut a deal for new webisode series "I Love Chieftown," from the U.K. production team behind the popular Web serial "Kate Modern," and she cited "Chieftown" as a good candidate for further international exploitation via ShineReveille. [Variety]
Can the vision succeed?
MySpace are not the only people seeing the potential for a global hit show incubated online.
In his exclusive interview for our report 2008: The Birth of Online TV, Geoff Goodwin, Head of the BBC’s Switch teen division, said, “What will be that breakthrough format, launched out of some small independent gamer community or by the BBC or Disney and all of a sudden has a global footprint of 80 million people using it? That is the opportunity, the scale of ambition, isn’t it? And I don’t think that’s ever existed before.”
Similarly, Jon Vlassopulos, senior VP digital media and branded entertainment, Endemol USA: “The holy grail for us would be starting a show on the Internet and then packaging it internationally on TV.”
MySpace is positioning itself as a global commissioning hub.
It could, for instance, commission a new show in the UK and test it out online, simultaneously in the UK and elsewhere. Special Delivery, for instance, came from a British indie producer. MySpace already uses a polling tool to analyse online viewers’ reactions and shape the show accordingly.
If successful, MySpace could attempt to sell the new show or its format to US television and ShineReveille to television everywhere else. Multiply that example by MySpace commissioning in 26 countries and the power of what they could do is significant.
From Variety: “Partnership is a two-way street in that ShineReveille will be able to use MySpace's worldwide heft to test out some of its new programs and formats via MySpaceTV and MySpace social networking services in more than 25 territories worldwide.”
The move also comes at a time when the US networks are cutting back on piloting shows, preferring to save the money and go straight to commissioning a season. MySpace is now poised to fill the piloting gap.
None of this is a guarantee of success.
MySpace could nevertheless commission a whole string of flops. Yet the scale of the ambition is now clear.
The MySpace / Shine deal has created a mechanism with the potential to incubate, test and exploit all the global rights to a wide range of new shows sourced from producers across 26 countries.
News Corp has just created a television production R&D division with an international footprint.
And finally.... Where does this leave original shows on Bebo?
When will the other social networks that are commissioning their own shows, such as Bebo, strike similar deals?
Bebo is partnering with major indies, such as Endemol for The Gap Year, so will it choose to piggy-back on their distribution? Or will it make its own arrangements? What role might Bebo’s new owner AOL play via Time Warner?
NB MySpace poached some of the KateModern producers from Bebo for the new music-based show, I Love Chieftown.
Looks like the competition for online production talent just heated up.
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