Variety reports that a bootleg video of the unsold NBC/Universal WB sitcom pilot NOBODY’S WATCHING "mysteriously" showed up on YouTube, where it has become a viewer favorite. The studio almost immediately gave YouTube the okay to keep the pilot up and is already considering offering it for sale on iTunes. Meanwhile, the producers are hoping the buzz leads to their sitcom getting a second chance on one of the networks.
Maybe I’m too cynical, and have written too many mysteries, but this whole thing feels very premeditated to me…it wouldn’t surprise me at all to learn that the producers or the studio were the ones who "mysteriously" uploaded the bootlegged pilot to YouTube.
YouTube, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to mind being used in this way. The pilot is content, after all, and I suppose YouTube is just glad any time a studio calls with something besides a cease-and-desist order.
Shades of John Rogers’ pilot for Global Frequency.
Mark
Wouldn’t be surprised if it was the producers’ doing, but what of it? YouTube is the greatest viral advertising since MySpace, and is a lot more likely to stick around. It’s about time that a producer or executive started experimenting with it.
New Hope for the Dead
TV Critic Chuck Barney reports that the flop WB sitcom pilot NOBODY’S WATCHING, which got a lot of hype and thousand of hits when it was mysteriously posted on YouTube, has received an order for six scripts from NBC. The