Web-based video series faces many challenges

Online video ventures haven’t fared particularly well in recent years. Eager to replicate the success of “Saturday Night Live’s” digital shorts or YouTube’s quirky user-generated fair, a number of businesses — including NBC’s DotComedy, Turner’s SuperDeluxe and ABC-Disney Television’s Stage 9 Digital — have gone under due to a lack of advertising dollars.

There are still some survivors, like MTV Networks’ Atom.com, which hosts inexpensive comedy videos that are user-generated or acquired in licensing deals, and Funny or Die, the comedy website run by Will Ferrell, Judd Apatow and writer Chris Henchy that features skits from celebrities who participate at no charge.

Eric Berger, senior vice president of digital networks for Sony Pictures Television, believes it’s the high production quality and the stars who appear in “Woke Up Dead” that will attract advertisers to Crackle. But the site is also looking to make money in other ways.

“We’re looking at a number of different models because this is an extremely viable medium that is taken very seriously by the studio,” he said. “We sold one of our Web series ['Angel of Death'] to Spike as a movie and brought it to DVD and sold it electronically on iTunes. Utilizing all of the different distribution models as a studio is a smart way to go, just as TV shows go to DVD and into syndication.”  LA Times

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