Old TV series don’t die, they just move to the Web. But a new deal between MySpace.com and a British-based production firm makes clear that the Web is where they can be born as well.
On Thursday, the popular social-networking site announced at the MIPTV conference in Cannes, France, a partnership with ShineReveille International, a content distributor and member of the Shine Group. As part of the arrangement, MySpaceTV will distribute original content to international television, DVD and merchandise.
‘Hollywood’s Digital Playground’
Content from MySpaceTV will be sold exclusively by ShineReveille. MySpace keeps all U.S. distribution rights, as well as all international Web and mobile distribution rights. The deal does not include the production of content for MySpace.
Travis Katz, MySpace’s managing director of international, said his company “provides the creative community with a launchpad to virally test and distribute content to the world’s largest focus group,” adding that MySpaceTV “has quickly become Hollywood’s digital playground.” Shine Group President Alex Mahon told The New York Times that his company is “very excited to see how the shows on online platforms can transfer to television.”
Video created for online has typically been very short — in the range of five minutes or less — to accommodate the attention spans of Web surfers. The main thrust of the deal appears to be testing concepts in the online world, and then transferring them to full-scale TV production, rather than simply showing compilations of three-minute clips on TV. The equivalent in traditional TV would be expanding a sketch or a supporting character into its own series.
Current MySpace TV Shows
Currently, two MySpaceTV shows in the U.S. are running online, Roommates and Special Delivery. The social-networking site has said there are about a dozen others in development. The Spanish MySpace also has Porta, about a hip-hop star, and MySpace in the…