Long-form vs short-form web series

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Permalink Reply by Chris Williams on October 12, 2009 at 8:42am

I'd be worried about view retention going short form. With tv, posting clips and episodes on Hulu works well, but most of those shows are typically 24 to 42 minutes.

Web series (at least ones I see) are mostly under 10 minutes.

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Permalink Reply by Web Series Network on October 12, 2009 at 11:31am

This is me writing from an audience perspective. Lately I've been craving longer web series and there's none out there. If you're a content creator and you're reading this, please step up and stand out.

Chris Williams said:

I'd be worried about view retention going short form. With tv, posting clips and episodes on Hulu works well, but most of those shows are typically 24 to 42 minutes.

Web series (at least ones I see) are mostly under 10 minutes.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Williams on October 12, 2009 at 2:50pm

In our latest episode of The Variants we ran into the challenge of taking advantage of YouTube's large audience but were confined to 10 minutes. If you look at the time, it's right at 9:59. Anything longer, they reject.

Right now, YouTube is the easiest way to create and view content. My fear is beyond 10 minutes, a viewer will not likely click a "part 2" or "part 3".

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Permalink Reply by Web Series Network on October 12, 2009 at 3:32pm

One way to work around this is to split each episode into three acts ending in a cliffhanger. You just have to be creative during editing. If the viewer connects with the show he'll keep watching. Go for it and don't be afraid of the unknown. The best experience [from my experience] is through trial and error.

Chris Williams said:

In our latest episode of The Variants we ran into the challenge of taking advantage of YouTube's large audience but were confined to 10 minutes. If you look at the time, it's right at 9:59. Anything longer, they reject.

Right now, YouTube is the easiest way to create and view content. My fear is beyond 10 minutes, a viewer will not likely click a "part 2" or "part 3".

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Permalink Reply by Juliette Tai on October 12, 2009 at 8:30pm

We at Greenlight360 have plans to do just that - create long form media. We believe that if people watch television programming they will watch via the Internet, and Hulu proves that, especially if the content is compelling and done well. We are currently in the writing room with our first project. Please stay tuned.

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Permalink Reply by Web Series Network on October 12, 2009 at 8:33pm

I'm with you on this and look forward to your show.

Juliette Tai said:

We at Greenlight360 have plans to do just that - create long form media. We believe that if people watch television programming they will watch via the Internet, and Hulu proves that, especially if the content is compelling and done well. We are currently in the writing room with our first project. Please stay tuned.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Wiltz on October 12, 2009 at 10:19pm

I've thought about this quite a bit actually so I apologize if this goes on too long. I think my views on this are more cautionary than anything else.

I recently had a conversation with someone from Blip.tv and he told me that their average show length has increased from 3-5minutes to about 12-14minutes. Setting aside any possible quality control issues (i.e the show is running long because it could have been edited more) most people seem to attribute this trend to sites like Hulu that are offering half-hour and even hour-long material for viewers.

How much of this content is wholly original content that isn't available on TV or DVD? Next to none and that's where my concerns come into play. To me this seems to be a matter of goodwill and "training" to much extent. Here's what I mean:

I personally have trouble staying with new Web content that is more than 12 minutes long. But I'll watch The Office, Heroes, Lie to Me, Fringe, The Forgotten, ect...all the way through on Hulu ( only occasionally though, not habitually because I use my computer for A LOT more than watching shows and YouTube). The reason for this I think is that in addition to quality, there's a certain amount of let's say brand goodwill that comes with this. I already know from watching it on TV that I'm a fan of, say Fringe, so I'm willing to sit there because it promises to be good. All things equal, would I still watch the show if it were only online? Perhaps - as long as the marketing machine found me and pulled me in the same way it was able to draw me to the show on TV.

Also, lets not forget that not too long ago much of TV itself dealt in short form content. The big three networks filled their prime time lineup with 10-15 minute shows because the thinking then (as it is now with the Web) was that viewers would not sit down in front of their TV for much longer than that (people must've had better things to do back then). The fact that many of these were variety shows only compounds the point. Over time viewership habits changed - for a myriad of reasons - and now we enjoy TV the way we do now. But there are still networks (Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block comes to mind off hand) that still show that short form can be a very viable source of viewership, especially for niche audiences.

The difference in all this I would hazard though is a matter of training. A TV is JUST a TV (for now) if you're not watching shows or movies or playing video games on it, what else is there? We've been trained more or less to think of TV as a longer form mode of entertainment delivery. Computers are a bit different. Since their inception computers have been about productivity and efficiency - not something we associate with long form viewership. Trends seem to indicate that this is changing somewhat (though I hope the computer NEVER becomes a glorified TV that handles email and typing book reports) but part of me can't help but think we're doing a disservice to the medium by looking to make it more like TV.

As a content creator, the a big part of the draw of Web-based entertainment is the openness and freedom it affords you creatively. TV has formatting guidelines, length requirements, advertising quotas, standards and practices - all the things, that frankly come by having a medium run by the big money corporate machine. Short films and independent pilots have been a viable means for young filmmakers to get attention and break into the industry since the first film festivals kicked off (long before the Web). If you go to the vast majority of networks right now and pitch a series that's 5-10 minutes long, takes place in one location, and has a small, set cast you'll probably be laughed out of the door...sure you can monetize such a show, but no one knows how to do E.R numbers with that anymore.

But you can do it on the Web and, as someone with a longer show myself (episodes of Semi-Dead are averaging about 10 minutes), I really want to caution fellow creatives against jumping on this long form bandwagon for the sake of a trend and not really looking at the best way to deliver your concept. Just like TV has a scrutiny between hour and half-hour (the latter usually being comedy and the former being drama) the Web can have this same scrutiny but for a much more expansive and interesting number of formats from short 2 minute skits to full blown hour-long productions (hopefully some day). As they are currently written, I don't think 30 minutes of, say, The Guild or the Crew works any better than an hour of Two and Half Men or 5 minutes of House. But all those shows work amazingly in their current format.

I guess what I'm saying in all of this ranting is that here we have a chance to really recreate what scripted entertainment means to the public and do something with the media landscape beyond just creating "TV 2.0: The Sequel" If you have a concept that would make a great long form web series then please go for it! But don't try to make us sit there for 30 minutes just because statistics show we will - it's a recipe for disaster. Even on TV shows succeed on the merit of their content, not their length. If length were the primary factor networks would just look at what gets the highest rating (half-hour or hour) and blast us with more of what does better. While I'm sure they may do this to an extent (see ABC's focus on dramas over comedy) at the end of the day there's no way to gauge a show's success based only on how long/short it is.

I'm as excited about this length shift as anyone. But let's not exclude the creating great short-form content as well. As Web creators we can deliver the best of both worlds. Viewers already enjoy short-form on the Web so let's make that even better and as more long-form becomes acceptable, rather than re-training the audience entirely, let's just add more choices to what they already enjoy.

I know people love to follow trends, and I'll bet in a world of nothing but long-form web video, as soon as someone creates a killer short-form that grabs everyone's attention then the trend will shift right back to short-form on the creative end. We can be more creative and smart than this though. In the end I think what will really separate Web from TV (and hopefully combine the two in some way) will be the availability of robust and diverse content (including cross-platform entertainment) - stories told and delivered in ways that are fresh, not just packing everything in the same format.

...Just my two cents.

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Permalink Reply by Juliette Tai on October 22, 2009 at 10:38am

I meant to mention this when I last replied, but I've posted a new blog on a similar subject "Short Form or Long Form Web Video – You Decide?" at http://greenlight360.com/2009/10/22/short-form-long-form-web-video/

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Permalink Reply by Web Series Network on October 22, 2009 at 4:01pm

Great perspective from Greenlight360.com on short vs. long form content:

Which do you prefer? It seems that short-form videos still dominate online viewing, but I also believe that’s because it’s what came first; in fact, initially YouTube had a 100 MB upload limit. Metacafe recently commissioned a study (July 2009) on – who in America is watching, what they are watching, and how much. They surveyed nearly 2,000 people between the ages of 12 to 64.

This survey found that over one-third (37%) of viewers watched short professional videos, and found them to be as entertaining as full-length TV shows. These shorts are especially popular with the younger viewer – this should be a cue to Brand advertisers to stretch their marketing to both television and online.

Other stats worth highlighting:

* 43% of all Internet users watch online videos weekly
o 70% of males 18-24 watch weekly, including the 25% who watch daily
o 56% of females 12-17 watch weekly, including the 13% who watch daily
o 30% of all 55-64 year olds watch online videos weekly
* 34% of TV viewers also use their computer at least half the time while watching TV (that would be me!)
* 20% of all online video viewers say they watch less TV due to online video

On the flip side, due to the success of Hulu and other pure-play providers, over the last couple years they’ve been able to convince us, the viewers, that the Internet is a good place a watch long form video. Twenty-five percent of online video viewers are watching full-length TV shows, and 15% are watching full-length movies online.

YouTube definitely is the leader in online video, as they’ve built up an amazing 5.5B streams (April 2009), so they are clearly one of the top destinations. But even, YouTube now provides us with long form video, be it TV shows to movies.

So which form will reign supreme?

There are monetizing issues with both short and long form. YouTube has still not seen its full earning potential. Hulu has business model challenges in that they advertise 4-minutes per hour, which is great for the viewer, however, Hulu is still a business and how will they maintain the ability to show premium content? This is just food for thought….as the intent of this blog entry was to find out – which do you prefer – short form or long form online video?

Learn more at reelseo.com, mediapost.com, contentinople.com

Download this pdf for a complete list of the survey findings

Blog post by Juliette Tai, Director of Research & Competitive Intelligence, Greenlight360

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Permalink Reply by Bernie Su on October 25, 2009 at 3:39pm

This is my first post so I'm gonna start with a "hi everyone!"

Anyway, I think it really comes down to resources and execution. I don't think we've seen a compelling long form show made for the web just yet. Let's face it, it's probably a lot cheaper to produce a 4 minute episodic vs a 20 minute episodic.

I've been hearing a lot of talk in last year about how the audience is open to longer episodes on the web, and though I may agreed to this to a degree I think it's greatly misinterpreted. It feels that many creators are just opening up the floodgates and making longer episodes just cause they feel they can. So what happens is that the creator will stick in all this content to fatten up the episodes, yet ignoring the fact that this is still an ADD audience that will click away when their interest wanes.

I know that I'd rather see 5 minutes of lean, efficient story telling rather a 20 minute episode that contains 10 minutes of filler and 10 minutes of the "good stuff".

Each episode should be as long as it needs to be, and thus as short as it can be.

Bernie

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Permalink Reply by Blind Lyle Films on October 27, 2009 at 2:46pm

A simple fix to that is change the type of youtube account you have from acting to director. That way you aren't limited by the 10 min time constraint. I'd be curious to know what kind of viewer retention you have (you can see this when looking at your youtube insight). I'm concerned about going past the 5 minute mark generally.

Chris Williams said:

In our latest episode of The Variants we ran into the challenge of taking advantage of YouTube's large audience but were confined to 10 minutes. If you look at the time, it's right at 9:59. Anything longer, they reject.

Right now, YouTube is the easiest way to create and view content. My fear is beyond 10 minutes, a viewer will not likely click a "part 2" or "part 3".

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Permalink Reply by Blind Lyle Films on October 27, 2009 at 3:07pm

This really is a great question. It appears that the 3-5 minute episode is the standard, but in this format, I don't believe we've really seen typically yet. I think that if the content is really important to the story and it is entertaining, we have a bit more flexibility.

If anyone out there has "success" stories of longer form content, let me know.

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