It’s now been confirmed that after poor ratings for the first episode of Quarterlife, screened on NBC last Thursday night, the show has been dumped by the network.
Quarterlife started on MySpace TV and after a swathe of positive reviews, was picked up by NBC to fill the void left by the writers strike. Unfortunately, the hype didn’t translate to ratings.
The show about a bunch of tech savvy twenty-somethings, from creators Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, will now be heading for cable channel Bravo.
Herskovitz Called It
Herskovitz had already prepared himself for this possible outcome, and a few weeks ago, told NewTeeVee:
“If under some very painful circumstance we don’t get enough viewers on NBC we could go on cable — A&E, Bravo. Within our economic model we’re more versatile in that way.”
While those comments show that this was the worst possible outcome for the show, and the creators were hopeful it would do better than it ended up doing, it means the series is still financially worthy as a cable show.
The Future Of Web To TV Transitions?
The fact that the first web to network television series bombed, and got canned after its first episode has left many speculating over the future of these types of transitions.
One show bombed, but there are many more waiting to take its place, and Hollywood is definitely coming around to the idea that the Internet is a viable place for new television content.
Seth McFarlane Working With Google
Seth McFarlane, the brains behind cult animated series Family Guy, and a big supporter of the recently ended writers strike, is working on a web based show for Google.
Having cleared his digital work with the Writers Guild of America, it’s been announced that he’ll be making an original show called Cavalcade, which will comprise a number of webisodes distributed through one of Google’s many portals.
This kind of news, which is becoming more and more regular, proves that although Quarterlife airing on NBC may have been too premature, web shows are a definite future outlet for big name writers and stars.
