Crave

This post was updated at 12:46 PM PT with comment from 'Quarterlife' co-creator Marshall Herskovitz.

It's undoubtedly a setback for those hoping to see Web video make a clean transition to the living room TV: Quarterlife, the hyped-up Web series from the co-creators of Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, had a very disappointing network debut on NBC and may be on the chopping block.

The show, which premiered Tuesday night, managed to pull in only a tepid 3.1 million viewers, according to The Hollywood Reporter. While NBC hasn't formally decided to pull the plug, sources have told the entertainment news service that such an announcement is forthcoming.

Video-blogging 'Quarterlife' protagonist Dylan Krieger, played by actress Bitsie Tulloch

(Credit: NBC)

It could've been a Cinderella story. A TV show, rejected by traditional outlets, finds a new home on the Web. It gains buzz, a major network picks it up, it's a success, and everybody cashes out. Or not.

Quarterlife, a semi-edgy drama, had debuted online at Quarterlife.com and via a syndication deal with MySpace.com. On the Web, it didn't reach "Leave Britney Alone" levels of popularity, but it amassed enough viewers and positive reviews for NBC to decide to add Quarterlife to its prime-time lineup.

But the reason why Quarterlife was likely picked up so quickly--the Writers Guild of America strike that left television networks without new scripted content--no longer exists. Now that the writers are, well, writing again, NBC has a much less compelling reason to keep Quarterlife around.

In a statement Thursday, Quarterlife co-creator Marshall Herskovitz remained optimistic. "I am happy to say that the reports of Quarterlife's demise are exaggerated. We're deeply grateful for NBC's efforts to make Quarterlife a success on network television," he said. "However, I've always had concerns about whether Quarterlife was the kind of show that could pull in the big numbers necessary to succeed on a major broadcast network. It is important to remember that Quarterlife has already proved itself as a successful online series and social network with millions of enthusiastic fans."

It's niche-media, Herskovitz added. "We live in a media world today where many shows are considered successful on cable networks with audiences that are a fraction of those on the Big Four. I'm confident that Quarterlife will find the right home on television as well."

MySpace.com is testing out the director's chair with a new Web-based series, Roommates, which debuts Monday at 1 p.m. PDT. Through December 21, a new three-minute episode of the show will be available each weekday on the MySpaceTV portal and through the Roommates profile page.

When college ends, the real party begins? Can somebody make sure my boss knows that?

The series, co-created by MySpace and new-media production studio Iron Sink Productions, marks the first time that the News Corp.-owned social-networking site has been behind the development of a scripted Web show. Roommates is a show within a show, as four recent college graduates move to Los Angeles and enlist in an uber-surveillant reality show while four of their other friends observe from their "real lives." They are, naturally, all good-looking females with penchants for strappy tank tops.

MySpace users will be invited to participate in the creative process, said Jeff Berman, general manager of the MySpaceTV division. "They'll be able to help shape story arcs," he said. "We're going to see some of the best creative ideas for the show come from our users." There will also be a polling tool, similar to the ones that MySpace has been using for its presidential dialogue Webcasts, to gauge audience opinions of the plot and characters. "It's not quite Choose Your Own Adventure," Berman explained, "but it's the MySpace version of it."

Advertisements for the show are provided by Ford as part of its campaign for the 2008 Ford Focus car.

Roommates isn't the only Web-based series that MySpace has on the way. Coming on November 11 is the drama series Quarterlife, which wasn't actually created by MySpace. The latest project from Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life creators Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, Quarterlife simply has a distribution deal with the social network.

But Roommates is pure MySpace. A release from the social network said that it "will retain creative control over all aspects of the show's development--including casting, story development, location scouting, wardrobe, and more--allowing the company to create the series exclusively with the MySpace audience in mind."

There will be more professional content coming to MySpaceTV soon, Berman hinted. "We're launching our partnership with Hulu in the next few weeks to bring network content to our users," he said, referring to the joint online video venture between NBC Universal and MySpace parent company News Corp.

NEW YORK--Marshall Herskovitz, co-creator of the upcoming Web series Quarterlife, calls his decision to distribute the show on MySpace.com a "deal with the devil."

At a Thursday screening of the first six eight-minute episodes of the show as part of the CMJ Music Marathon and film festival, Herskovitz--best known as one half of the team that created the critically acclaimed TV series Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life--emphasized his aim to bring creativity to the world of professional online video.

'Quarterlife' protagonist Dylan, played by Bitsie Tulloch

(Credit: MySpaceTV)

"What I'm seeing on the Internet right now is really boring, and I think these big companies are missing it in a big way," he explained in a question-and-answer session following the screening. "All these new things, Hulu and even Joost, they're creating these platforms as though that's the goal. But they're not creating interesting programming. They're reusing content from television."

He continued: "There aren't any very good ideas coming out of it, and I haven't seen anything that really interests me."

Then, according to Herskovitz, there's the YouTube problem.

"People are quite fascinated by user-generated content on the Internet right now, and I'm not against that. And we want that on our site. But I believe that user-generated on the Internet, just like reality shows on television, are not completely satisfactory," he asserted. "There are reasons why we've had classical storytelling for 2,500 years, and across so many cultures. And there are reasons why we've had a film grammar for the past 100 years about how we shoot a film, and there's a place for that."

Which is why he and Zwick saw a window of opportunity for Quarterlife, a series about a half-dozen 20-somethings working in "creative" industries like acting, writing and filmmaking. Divided into eight-minute episodes, the Web series will be the center of a planned social network for fans as well as young creative people in general.

... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog

A promotional photo of 'Dylan,' the cute protagonist of 'Quarterlife'

(Credit: MySpaceTV)

We reported back in July that MySpace in the midst of a deal with the creators of the movie Blood Diamond to create a new Web-based program called Quarterlife. At the time, it wasn't confirmed, representatives from the parties involved declined to comment, and quarterlife.com was password-protected.

Now, it's official: a release from MySpace has confirmed that Quarterlife will debut on its MySpaceTV platform on November 11. A project of Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, who created the TV shows My So-Called Life and Thirtysomething in addition to Blood Diamond, the new Web show will follow the lives of six people in their 20s and "chart the sometimes excruciating, sometimes comic, often emotional experiences that comprise coming of age as a part of the digital generation." The protagonist, an easy-on-the-eyes female named Dylan, is unsurprisingly a video blogger, and the quarterlife.com Web site will have plenty of additional content and social networking features.

MySpace started dabbling in its new role as a digital-age broadcaster when it hosted Prom Queen, a Web series created by Vuguru, the online video studio helmed by former Disney chief Michael Eisner. But Prom Queen was syndicated across a number of online video platforms, rather than committed to a single one. This summer, MySpaceTV snagged exclusive rights to the debut of Lonelygirl15's season finale, but after its "premiere" the episode was openly distributed among the likes of YouTube and Revver.

MySpaceTV, however, is the "exclusive international distribution partner" for Quarterlife. The 36 episodes that the social network has ordered will presumably be restricted to the platform, but company representatives did not indicate whether the company will take any kind of action to keep it off other video-sharing sites.

Jeff Berman, general manager of MySpaceTV, emphasized in an interview with CNET News.com that the original programming doesn't mean that MySpaceTV should be considered an exclusively professional video platform. "Our users are streaming content from the most super-premium studio- and network-produced product all the way down the 'long tail' to the stupidest pet trick imaginable," he said.