As we all know, the internet is a series of tubes filled with cats. However, now jostling for space with the talkative felines is a growing wealth of video content. Most students are no strangers to catching up with their favourite shows via the internet, but the streaming of entirely new content is a growing trend. Sure, we’ve had amateur content on YouTube for a while now, but more professional web videos are being uploaded with greater frequency all the time. This isn’t catch-up TV or endless re-runs of Countdown but fully-fledged high quality video content available to watch online. Screens are everywhere we look now, and the rapid increase of internet speeds has propelled internet videos to stratospheric levels of popularity. The online video revolution has begun.
A watershed moment in this movement was surely the release of Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog in 2008. Written and directed by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly, it unshackled him from the mediating influence of TV network juggernauts. The result was a three-act superhero musical which was released entirely for free online. Whedon put up his own money to fund the project, eventually recouping it all from tremendously successful iTunes and DVD sales. It was a triumph for self-publishing and evidence that there are ways to monetise internet videos with a little innovative thinking.
Four years have passed since then, and content providers are now starting to think big. Two weeks ago saw the release of the first episode of the prequel to 2004’s sci-fi series Battlestar Galactica entitled Blood and Chrome. It is being worked on by a number of those involved in the original show and contains similar production values. There’s only one difference: Blood and Chrome is being released for free on YouTube. Similarly, subscription streaming company Netflix are in the process of resurrecting cult show Arrested Development for release next year. The creator and all of the original cast have been reunited for a new season after it was cancelled after its third in 2006.
What does the emergence of these big-name franchises mean? Well, don’t throw away your TV just yet but the future surely lies with on-demand content available on your chosen PC/smartphone/ tablet/iDevice. Online content isn’t just easier to access than ever before, but is also helping to blur the lines between television and film to create new forms of content. Without networks, episodes don’t have to be of uniform lengths or have ad breaks. Creative control is returned to creators, leading to bolder and more experimental content.
The online video revolution puts the power over what to watch firmly in the hands of consumers, and removes some of the boundaries between audience and creator. This is a paradigm shift driven by the internet age, one that will define the future of entertainment. Certainly worth taking notice of, if you can tear yourself away from the endless cat pictures, that is.