Web television might finally be coming of age but what age that is exactly I’m not sure – I think it’s just hit adolescence? Web TV has been maturing in the last few years with successful webisodes like The Guild and our own Australian offering of Oz Girl – but the big boys have finally entered the fray with the very first studio produced web series to be distributed via Hulu, the joint venture between NBC, Fox and ABC. The new show set to go to web on March 2nd (US time) is called ‘If I Can Dream’ and follows 5 aspiring artists as they try and break into Hollywood. The reality series is a hybrid between American’s Next Top Model, American Idol and an Acting version of those shows, which is no surprise because it has been produced by Simon Fuller’s company 19 Entertainment, producer of American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance.
The program feels like conventional television with a web delivery system as opposed to being something that has been produced with the Internet environment in mind. But with more people watching more video content online there does seem to be a place for some form of traditional programming on the web. The series has been backed by some of the biggest players in Hollywood and is likely to be a top notch program but the question still remains will a show like this work in this medium? The series will upload one episode each week and be available worldwide – unlike a lot of Hulu’s current videos which are only available in North America in an attempt to try and protect the global rights of their top programs. This experiment is likely to inform the future programming decisions of producers and networks because if this series proved to be a hit then there will be a spate of copycat shows that follow in its wake, if it fails the rest of Hollywood will be happily partying at its wake.
