ABC Says 'No Thanks' to Viewer Ideas

I've been told by some fairly high-level execs at Disney that figuring out how user-generated content fits into the company's content creation processes is one big idea that the company is wrestling with.

If this piece from today's NY Times is any indication, that initiative is proving to be every bit as challenging as the execs there expected it would be. Apparently, the Writers Guild doesn't like the idea of Disney's ABC television network asking viewers for story ideas for the new sit-com "In the Motherhood"; the show was born on the Web, where it fed off real-life tales from viewers.

From Brian Stelter's piece today:

On the MSN.com edition of “Motherhood” (since discontinued), short segments about funny, frazzled mothers were inspired by the real-life stories that viewers submitted via an Internet forum. ABC, similarly, asked for story submissions on its Web site (itm.abc.go.com) and said that they “might just become inspiration for a story by the writers.”

But ABC’s call for ideas from moms drew the attention of the Writers Guild of America, which said this type of request for submissions was “not permissible” under its contract with the network. This week ABC abruptly removed the language about “inspiration” from its Web site, effectively saying that the writers may not be listening to viewers’ ideas, after all.

The last-minute changes are a telling demonstration of the differences between the Web video world — a mostly low-budget, short-form medium — and the traditional television industry. Just as most publishing companies don’t accept unsolicited manuscripts, most TV and movie studios don’t accept scripts, ideas or jokes submitted by viewers. Unless the proper waivers are signed in advance, something as innocent as a fan e-mail message with a suggested joke can provoke a copyright-infringement lawsuit later.

Too bad... this puts the Writers Guild on the wrong side of innovation.

Lower-budget 3-D Releases on the Way ... Delivering Critics' Screeners Digitally

Two pieces worth a look from the weekly edition of Variety:

- "Lower-budget titles try on 3-D" focuses on a $4 million budget British film, 'The Mortician,' and a $7 million US film, 'Dark Country,' being released in digital 3-D.

- "Networks to shift screeners online", about delivering critics' screeners of new TV shows over the Internet, rather than on DVDs. From Josef Adalian's piece:

[Newark Star-Ledger TV critic Alan Sepinwall says] "DVD screeners occasionally give picture problems, but they're vastly more consistent and reliable than any form of streaming video I've yet encountered."

Perhaps, but the networks are convinced online screening is the way to go.

It can cost a network in the ballpark of $1 million per year to send out a full assortment of DVD screeners. In contrast, once startup costs are amortized, digitizing shows and posting them online costs just a fraction of that amount.

"We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars we can save," says Sharon Williams, the ABC senior veepee who's helped lead the Alphabet's digitial screener initiative.

i-Caught: Internet videos on primetime TV

Back in June, I spoke with Jason Schlosberg, a Washington, DC attorney who occasionally writes for the Film Arts Foundation magazine. We talked about some of the options for monetizing an incredible safari video shot by a friend of Jason's, which had achieved viral success on YouTube (13 million views and counting.)

Now, Jason has licensed the clip to ABC for a new show called i-Caught; it's reviewed in the NY Times today, and airs on ABC tonight. We'll see how well Internet videos work in this broadcast context; it's an idea that has been tried before on cable, but never on primetime TV.

And it'll be tempting, tomorrow morning, to see whether Schlosberg's clip on i-Caught attracts more viewers on TV than it did on YouTube -- even though it'll clearly generate more money for him and his friend.

(The safari clip, "Battle at Kruger," is below - if you're squeamish, you may want to skip it.)

User-gen content ain't dead ... but it'll have to fight for viewers

Andrew Wallenstein of The Hollywood Reporter has a mock obituary for user-generated content. He writes:

There was a time not that long ago when UGC seemed poised to topple Hollywood, as if anyone with a video camera and a Web connection was deemed a budding Steven Spielberg. But ask yourself this: When was the last time an amateur viral video actually reached viral status?

This is in the vein of my article last December in the Mercury News, suggesting that while big media companies were slow in grasping the Net's video-distribution potential, they were going to figure it out soon enough. In that piece, there's a quote from ABC exec Albert Cheng:

"Pirated content and user-generated content was all that was available on the Web [for a long time]," says Albert Cheng, executive vice president of digital media for the Disney-ABC Television Group. "Once you see media companies such as ours putting more content online, I think there will be a shift in what people choose, back toward professionally-produced content."

Some argue that viewers on the Internet simply prefer the wacky, unpredictable, and more informal quality of amateur-made videos, comparing the genre to reality TV shows that have become increasingly popular in the past five years.

But every new medium goes through an early period of playful, sometimes aimless, experimentation.

I don't think amateur video content is going away... in fact, more of it will be produced every year. I don't think we'll stop seeing viral videos that come from amateurs or semi-pros and reach millions of people. I just think our diet of online video is getting more balanced -- a mix of stuff from big media, smaller producers, and individuals.

You?