The Line Between TV and Web Video Is Blurring

I'm blogging today from the NewTeeVee Live: Television Reinvented event today in San Francisco, a gathering of practically everybody in the business of pushing video on the Internet.

This morning's first session lined up some key players from Turner Broadcasting, BigFantastic, MTV, as well as YouTube crossover star Lisa Donavan (Lisa Nova) to talk about the blurring of the lines between traditional TV and Internet Video.

Lisa Donavan, AKA Lisa Nova explained how she went from being a writer/performer to being offered a gig as a regular cast member on Fox's Mad TV series. Donovan says a Mad TV producer saw one of her videos online, called her in for an interview, and signed her up shortly after.

BigFantastic's Douglas Cheney says his company's breakthrough moment was when TV mega-player Michael Eisner took a meeting with them after seeing their videos online. Eisner decided to go into business with the small company, and was executive producer of their second video effort, "Prom Queen." During its 12-week run, "Prom Queen" got more than 15 million views and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Outstanding Broadband Drama.

At the BigFantastic site you'll find a little mission statement that includes the line: "We believe that web video will not be limited to skateboard wipeouts."

Another example of crossover madness is MySpaceTV's new series "Roommates," which is basically the same in production value and content as MTV's Real Life series. The show--about four bitchy coeds living together in the big city--is almost unwatchable, but could one of the big TV networks eventually pick it up? Definitely, if it gets enough traffic at MySpaceTV.

So video born on the Net is crossing over to the TV screen more and more. But it works the other way too.

Turner Broadcasting System's Kevin Cohen talked about how his network carefully selects TV content to be converted for Web video consumption. The network is also developing original content just for the Web. This comes in the form of a new site called SuperDeluxe, for which Turner went in search of Hollywood comedy writers to write original content.

MTV's Ty Ahmad-Taylor talked about another sort of crossover path--a tool on the Facebook platform. "We figured out that most of the people who go to MTV online also are members at Facebook," he says. The tool allows Facebookers to search for, watch, and share MTV videos.

While hearing these people talk, you really get a sense that the Internet and the TV mediums are slowly collapsing together. Many of the people here today are already imagining a day when you can sit on your couch a watch high-quality YouTube-style user generated video, then shift gears and search through mountains of premium TV shows and movies hosted on the Internet. And Internet video stars might become indistinguishable from traditional TV stars. Stay tuned.

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