On Friday, Neilsen published the first tracking results for online television consumption. The result was that Lost was the big winner, with 1.4 million unique viewers in December.  Saturday Night Live and Grey’s Anatomy followed.

In the case of Lost, that number would be about 5% of an average live broadcast audience.  And since it’s spread over an entire month, really it’s a drop in the bucket.  However, let us remember a couple of things.  First, these figures don’t include sites like Hulu.com.  As far as I am concerned, Hulu features a viewing experience far preferable to any of the network sites, and in cases where it doesn’t just forward the viewer to the network, is probably representative of a comparable number of views.  Meanwhile, in December when these measurements were taken… Lost wasn’t on yet!  The numbers reflect people getting excited to remember all the plot twists before the show returned in January.  We should expect January numbers to be much higher, and February (which would be the first month to have a new episode each Wednesday) to be higher still.

Now recall that, per the 2008 strike settlement, writers make zero dollars during the first seventeen days following network broadcast.  The studios claimed they needed a “promotional” period (never mind that the “promotional” period follows the broadcast…)  They claimed revenues currently are so small that they cannot possibly share.  It is far too early, they said, to know how the internet will play out, or to discuss paying any money to the people who created the content they’re using to forge a new revenue stream for themselves.  Well, I caught Grey’s via the net recently, and I watched Jack-in-the-Box wheeled into a hospital multiple times.  I not only didn’t (couldn’t) fast forward through the commercials like on my TiVo, but–due to the obnoxious repetetiveness–I still remember what the commercial was for, a week later, and I sorta feel like having a Meaty Breakfast Burrito.  Someone made some money, and the writers deserve a percentage.  It doesn’t matter if that percentage is small, but it does matter that there’s a percentage.

Joss Whedon recently spoke about the economics of  Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a pioneering effort to develop new content for the internet, and to redefine the business model of production.  In a Wharton interview, he summed up the strike’s results nicely:

We can’t accept anything remotely like [our current situation] with the studios.

When the studios talk about the difficulty of monetizing the Internet, they’re not lying. There are a lot of paradigms wherein you aren’t making that much money. But it’s all pure money for them because they have these libraries they can just put on. They’re really not interested in putting on original stuff because they can just throw the libraries on and make free money off of that. None of us is in that position.

For [the studios] not to offer the creative community a percentage of what they make — they say, “oh, it’s too difficult” and “we’re not going to make any money” — is disingenuous to the point of criminality. What they’re making is pure profit. For them to shut out the people who actually created the content is something that should be looked into by a federal investigatory committee.

That really says it all.  Whatever money you’re making, networks, share.

When you love Joss Whedon’s work as much as I do, it’s difficult to stay objective watching his latest offering. How can I separate my reaction to Dollhouse from my excitement that Joss is once again on TV?  Only with great difficulty.  But I shall attempt to contain my fanboy giddiness in favor of presenting a straight response only to the Dollhouse pilot.

Dollhouse promises a rich mythology all of its own, apropos of a Joss Whedon story.  (Oops…)  The show centers around some super-secret corporation that hires out “actives” to the ultra-wealthy, providing them custom-built personnel perfect for handling extreme situations (or, it seems, dates.)  These agents literally get a new personality and skill set implanted in their brains, specially created for a mission, overwriting all previous memories.

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I guess after you’re on the air for TWENTY YEARS or so, it’s time to revamp the opening theme.

I’m impressed by how they managed to respect the original, and yet expand it in ways that acknowledge the show’s history and growth.

What do you think?

Establishing a daily rhythm is difficult for me because, as a tutor, I work swing shift hours.  In my ideal world, one wakes up, gets one’s work done, then enjoys the rest of the day once the work is done.  A childhood of farm chores will do that to a person.

So in my ideal world, I do my paying work first, my me work next, and watch TV at the end.  But if my tutoring, the paying work, starts when school gets out, the only way to maintain my preferred schedule is to go nocturnal.  Which I often do.  And it can be a nice pattern, until one has to interact with the regular, diurnal inhabitants of the world.  Sigh…

Worse is the fact that doing me-work after tutoring  is rough, because I’ll finish each day at 8 or 9, and want to go sit in a coffee shop and write for the next three or four hours.  So, perched as I am from this perspective, I can point out a symptom of our current economy that other might not see: Coffee shops are closing earlier and earlier.  Once I could count on a place or two to stay open till midnight, at least.  No more.  Ten o’clock closing times have become nine 0′clock.  Nines have become eights.  Stupid economy.

Also it means fewer jobs for writers.  But I’m focused on the immediate.

Anyway, if anyone knows of a place to get writing done in L.A., preferably on the west side, that stays open late, I’d love to know about it!

I’m stressed out.  The number of tutoring hours available seems to be slipping with the economy.  Even if families were lining up to hire me, I’d have a hard time scheduling it.  It seems like every to-do list item I cross off for BrevityTV creates three more.  Meanwhile, a nasty virus crippled my main computer, and I’m having a hard time getting my old files back.

I have a vision for this blog, for my screenplay consulting, for BrevityTV… but they all need hours upon hours of investment, and let’s not forget that I’m supposed to be actually getting my own writing done.  Writers write.

In order to get it all done, something has to go.  It’s going to be television.  Part of my strategy as aspiring TV writer has been to watch everything relevant, staying up to date on all important shows in case I get an opportunity to impress a gatekeeper with my encyclopedic knowledge.  But gatekeeper meetings aren’t happening, partly because I’m not getting enough writing done, so the encyclopedpic knowledge is moot.  Time to clear up the schedule and make things happen.

I just removed Life on Mars, My Name is Earl, Scrubs, The Daily Show (grudgingly), Saturday Night Live, Samantha Who?, House, How I Met Your Mother, and Two and a Half Men, Big Love, and the United States of Tara from the DVR.  If I get a meeting, I’ll need to do some emergency catch-up, I guess, but in the meantime, that will give me an extra 9.5 hours a week.  Netflix subscription reduced.  Commence world domination.