NBC - YOUTUBE RESCUES DEAD TV SERIES

In what amounts to the first case of the video website YouTube.com's resuscitating a canceled TV series, NBC is expected to announce today (Friday) that it will resurrect Nobody's Watching, which was canceled last year by The WB. Two weeks ago, the New York Times reported that a copy of the pilot had been downloaded more than 300,000 times since it was posted on YouTube.com in mid-June. Daily Variety reported today that NBC plans to fund a series of video clips featuring the characters from Watching that will also be posted on YouTube and on its own website. In an interview with the trade publication, Watching's producer, Bill Lawrence, praised NBC for being willing to take the risk of resurrecting a show that had already been discarded by another network because of the demand of Web viewers. "If network TV doesn't embrace the Internet as both a place to launch and test shows but also as a place where shows can live, they're going to fall further and further behind," he said.

21/07/2006