Why the Internet Doesn't Work on TV

The Internet just wasn't made for television. NBC's much-ballyhooed "Quarterlife", based on the wildly popular Web series, posted the already-troubled network's worst ratings in at least twenty years and led to cancellation discussion after its very first episode. (Is this what's meant by a "quarterlife crisis"?) But it's not the first time this season that the Internet has failed to pull in viewers of traditional TV; earlier in the year, "Online Nation", which showed viral video clips, became the CW's lowest-rated program ever and the first cancellation of the season.

Merely trying to summarize the concept of "Online Nation" gives the savvy viewer a chance to guffaw and understand why it can't work: it's the same thing you already saw online months ago, except without you being in control. (YouTube with restrictions? Sign me up!) Yet network executives and TV producers saw this as a goldmine; at least two more programs intending to show YouTube clips on television were in the works. (Your correspondent knows, because he saw one of the pilots. Ssssh.)

Watching television requires a commitment; even in the age of TiVo, you still have to plant your butt on the couch and decide to go in for a half hour of content. It's a commitment as real as the choice to spend money to buy a magazine or see a movie. But Web visitors are fleeting and finicky, and will dart the second they don't like something. They are savvy consumers, but the attitude in the television world seems to be to treat them like some sort of oddity that can be accounted for in the same way as any other niche group. As if the Internet was a genre rather than a medium-as if making an Internet show was like making a cooking show with fewer stoves and more screens.

And in the prehistoric days of the late nineties, when the Internet was still the hot new thing, this might have worked; one can imagine a demographic still adapting to life in cyberspace being intrigued by what goes on in that brave new world and requiring a familiar medium to hold their hand. But when watching YouTube viral videos is as routine an office task as buying paper clips, the novelty is gone, and you'd better have more to show for it than "it's the Internet... on television!"

Some commentators point to successes like MySpace diva Tila Tequila, funnyman Andy Milokanis and the paparazzi association TMZ as examples of the viability of Internet-to-television success. But these are examples of porting talent (or whatever else Tila Tequila might be), not content; people are tuning in to see a personality and a brand of entertainment they enjoy, not rehashes of what they can get online. No one would tune in to watch Tila Tequila type MySpace messages. (Well... maybe.)

The curious thing is, television content seems to port to the Internet well. That's why media conglomerates are so concerned about full episodes of their shows turning up on YouTube; that's why writers struck to make sure they get a fair royalties when their shows go digital. "Ebert and Roeper" posted full archives of their TV reviews (stretching back into the "Siskel and Ebert" days); Jay Leno invites his audience to watch "The Tonight Show" clips online; an organization called MinisodeNetwork cuts full episodes of old television down to bite-size chunks for anyone needing a five-minute fix of "Voltron", "Ricki Lake" or "The Facts of Life".

If television executives want to take the brave plunge into the Internet, they must think like Internet viewers do-think from the perspective of younger, hipper people who have choices, who know what they want and aren't going to be fooled by the novelty of the Internet on TV. Seeing old media desperately trying to incorporate the old to score some cyber-cred is embarrassing, like watching your father don an earring and a fine assortment of bling-bling. It will take new minds and new thinking, from people who have grown up in the Internet age, to bring the Web and the small screen into a happy marriage that incorporates the best of both worlds. Until then, keep clicking.

I mean, you don't see anyone offering to turn this article into a book.