Spotlight

It looks like the new television is here: a flexible, open industry more responsive to consumers and producers. Henry Jenkins’ textual poachers have become textual producers. Twenty years ago, audiences struggled to get power in production. Fans orchestrated large, coordinated campaigns to revive shows like Beauty and the Beast. Soon media companies started folding viewers into [...]

2013 will be a banner year for original web production. Amazon has been ordering pilots, multichannel networks have been raising money, YouTube series are scaling up, and Netflix’s slate of programs is the envy of every channel, save HBO. With House of Cards behind it, and Hemlock Grove coming up (along with series from the likes of [...]

A lot of exciting series have been premiering and finishing over the past few weeks! Here’s what to look out for. The Couple As the Black & Sexy team prep a feature-film version of their hit sitcom, The Couple, they released this episode from the second season! In it our couple is confronted with another couple. [...]

Spoilers ahead. There’s a tradition for launching a new network with a original programming. The idea is to give audiences something they can’t get elsewhere. On cable creating new original shows often leads to casting, or making shows about, minorities. It’s a remarkable trend. Look at the early scripted dramas and comedies for cable networks, [...]

I’m always getting pitched web series. Being just one person, I never have the time to write about all of them. In the past I’ve tried to spotlight interesting shows and cover crowdfunding campaigns. I’ll still do that, but I’m looking for more ways to cover what’s coming out. So I’d like to introduce another [...]

In this edition of “Crowdfunding Campaigns To Watch” we have one campaign to film the artpocalypse and another exploring the life of a long, lost Kardashian. Whole Day Down is a classy, strange comedy from Patrick Breen (The Normal Heart, Galaxy Quest) and Tai Fauci, starring Breen, Willie Garson (White Collar) and Elisa Donovan (NBC’s In Gayle [...]

Television is so awash in great shows no one can watch them all. And yet most TV fans can name the best new show of last year — technically, it’d have to be Girls – and best show overall — take your pick of Mad Men, Treme, Breaking Bad, etc. Online, nobody knows what’s good. There’s too [...]

Remember when Arcade Fire nabbed the top Grammy last year and people, from everyday tweeters to Rosie O’Donnell, unleashed a collective “who is Arcade Fire” campaign? That incident started a lot of introspection among music writers on the state of the industry. Digital products from Spotify to niche blogs seemed to make it easier for fans to stay [...]

Posted at Tubefilter. When I first ran into Abbi Jacobson at the New York Television Festival last month, I didn’t know what to expect. Jacobson was unassuming and humble. You’d never know she and creative partner Ilana Glazer were mere weeks away from shooting a pilot for a sitcom on Comedy Central based on their cult web series Broad City and executive produced by comedy queen Amy Poehler. If [...]

The New York Television Festival is over and the winners have won. This year 19 development deals, in various sizes and configurations, were handed out. Quality is always pretty high at NYTVF, widely regarded as a leading showcase for independent television, one that can make a real difference in a person’s career. And this year was no [...]