From NEWS-976 (Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)
May 10, 2000

Leisure & Arts
Taking the 'TV' out of TV Shows

By KATE FLATLEY

Five hundred channels and nothing on? Well, several new companies are

hoping the Internet will help them change that.

A whole crop of new Web sites, or "broadband digital channels," are

creating original entertainment programming that aims to break the mold of

standard TV fare. When it becomes widely available over the next year,

this service will be the first generation of digital television programming.

One such site already "on the air" is www.crushedplanet.com, the

brainchild of the documentary filmmakers who brought prurient adult

viewers HBO's "Taxicab Confessions." Joe and Harry Gantz's brand of

voyeuristic reality programing has found a perfect home on the Web.

On Crushed Planet, viewers can watch the continuing saga of Jason and

Crystal as they share their lives with the world in "First Apartment." This

live, 24-hour-a-day documentary follows the young couple's every

movement. And I mean every movement: Don't tune in at your desk if you

sit in a high traffic area, or your co-workers are liable to catch an eyeful.

But the Gantz brothers don't stop with the uninhibited young cohabitators.

There are four other programs on the site viewers can choose from. One

show, "Couples Arguing," unfolds like a train wreck before our eyes.

Couples who agreed to participate in the documentary beeped the film

crew when an argument started, retreated to separate rooms and then

resumed the fight in front of the Gantz's cameras.

While some of the new sites have slickly produced content utilizing the

latest in high-tech data-compression techniques to make the films and

shows stream more clearly for viewers with high-speed modems, the

Gantz's think the gritty, choppy style of today's streaming video adds to

their films' appeal.

"Our work is about the content more than the production value. Our

younger audience feels it's more intimate, more raw, something you

wouldn't see in mainstream television," says Mr. Gantz. Indeed, he couldn't

have produced "Crushed Planet" for regular television venues, because of

institutionalized censorship.

Nibblebox.com is another network that owes its existence to the freedom

of the Internet. Launched April 15, it's a site where college students can

present their original work online under the guidance of established

directors, writers and producers. Nibblebox's co-CEO's, Doug Liman

(who directed the films "Swingers" and "Go") and Elizabeth Hamburg, see

their site as an incubator for tomorrow's digital television pioneers.

From the pieces I watched, it looks as if they are on to something. Take

"Virtual Rob," in which a guy in his apartment is "directed" by the viewer

pointing and clicking around the screen -- it's funnier than it sounds.

Beginning next month, even teens will have their own broadband channel:

VOXXY.com. Co-founder Maxine Lapiduss has already lined up some

A-list talent, including "Friends" star Jennifer Aniston, and "think tanks" of

teens to appear onscreen.

Ms. Lapiduss and the channel's other co-founders, Kristi Kaylor and

Hillary Carlip, all have their eyes on the future. They stressed that while

they are launching on the Web, their real hope is to parlay their site into a

viable, digital cable channel.

The network with the most variety I've seen in programing is Pseudo.com.

It has four channels -- music; life and entertainment; business, politics and

science; and games and sports.

Pseudo teamed up with the Internet site The Hotline to cover the primary

elections in February. Having chat moderators at the same desk as

mainstream media pundits, including the Journal's own John Fund, allowed

the viewing public to instantly rebut or agree with commentators, which

brought an interesting twist to the standard format of political chat shows.

Pseudo's music-channel shows are street-smart and well produced,

including the popular 88HipHop.com, one of the few Internet shows

dedicated to the urban music scene. "Queendom," a show focused on

women in the male-dominated rap and hip hop industries, and Streetsound,

a subchannel devoted to electronica (heavily synthesized music with driving

beats), are also lively and entertaining.

But what is most interesting is Pseudo's broad-ranging arts coverage.

Moving beyond the celebrity-flooded entertainment sites, its channelP

interviews performance artists like extreme-dance choreographer Elizabeth

Streb, the performers in the Off-Broadway show "De La Guarda" and

dancer/choreographer Bill T. Jones. The interviews are mixed with clips of

their performances to provide an Internet window into contemporary art

sorely lacking elsewhere. Pseudo.com CEO David Bohrman told me that

new channelP shows have not been produced in a few months, but he

hopes there will be new episodes soon -- as do I.

This isn't to say everything on Pseudo's entertainment channel is good.

Some of the shows, especially "Hollywood Outsiders," in which two

annoying men blather about movies, smack of bad public-access television.

These and other networks are leading the way in Internet broadcasting, but

there are new, well-funded, media-mogul competitors close on their heels.

Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks and Ron Howard's Imagine

Entertainment have teamed up to form pop.com, "an independent digital

entertainment company created to produce and broadcast original

internet-only programming," according to their press materials. The site has

a launch date set for late spring.

The future of digital entertainment, like the future in general, is up for grabs.

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