NYT looks out of touch re: web series
True, the swirl of activity on the online video front is frenzied enough to bewilder a competent air-traffic control crew, but Tilzy.tv’s Colin McDonald has it right in calling out the NYT’s Virginia Heffernan for the confusion evident in her muddle-headed Sunday Magazine piece on web video series. Essentially, McDonald shows that Heffernan doesn’t know how to distinguish between an episodic web series, an online extension of a broadcast network show, and a multipart documentary. She cites as examples a handful of series that are no longer running.
Chris Albrecht over at NewTeeVee finishes the job, though I’m not sure I agree with his take on 3-to-5 minute episodes not sticking because they’re too long for quick viral-style closure but too short for TV sitcom/drama-style schedule annexation. I’d argue that, as fully developed pieces of a larger entity that can be snacked on or devoured whole [shown by the way people are watching Dorm Life on Hulu] they’re the ultimate engagement weapon. Just wait till distributors, brands and producers figure out how to market these things. Right now they’re still being handled like “online TV-like shows,” as the NYT share-module headline awkwardly calls them.
And I have to tsk-tsk just a little in reaction to Albrecht’s headline. I’m guessing 20% of all rebuttals to Heffernan’s columns start with “Yes, Virginia…”
