TVSquad

Seeing as this is the new year and all, I figured today's column would concentrate on the future. My original plan was to write extensively about what television will become following the detonation of the Yellowstone supervolcano -- who's ready for static?! -- but in the spirit of Hope (tm), I scratched that in favor of something a bit more positive.

My guess is that the numbers break down this way: 90% of you have no idea at all who Leo Laporte is, 7% kinda sorta remember him from the ill-fated ZDNET cable channel, and 2% of you are TWitTs like me. (The other one percent? Spambots worried about my "girth").

It's time to get to know Leo, because over the last year he has single-handedly created a brand-new paradigm for how TV is going to be viewed on the net ... kinda.

TWiT stands for "This Week in Technology", the flagship netcast in Laporte's home-produced media empire. Some of his other shows that you probably haven't heard of: MacBreak Weekly, Windows Weekly, Munchcast, Security Now!, and Net@Nite.

The entire "network" started life as a series of podcasts and, indeed, that's where Laporte still gets the majority of his listeners. This year, however, he started TWiT Live, an online "channel" that broadcasts the taping of those podcasts.

So maybe you've read this far and you're not ready to believe that the future of TV is a 52 year-old former basic cable host who broadcasts himself taping his own podcasts. Well check this out: did I mention he does it out of his basement and that the average live viewership of his shows (according to Wikipedia) is around 2000 people?

Admit it, your world is a little rocked right now.

Okay, so the numbers aren't impressive, but the fact that they're low and that Laporte is still making a living is exactly what makes TWiT such a good model for how other self-motivated broadcasting talents are going to make the migration to the internet.

Before we examine what Laporte is doing right, let's take a look at what the rest of the internet is doing wrong.

There are approximately twelve million webcasting "experiments" currently cluttering up the internet. If you exclude porn (which I always hate to do, but, unfortunately, it doesn't fit into the discussion), they're mostly split up into two groups: big budget enterprises created by traditional media, and sad-sack amateur productions.

The jury is still out on whether the big budget productions are ever going to earn their money back. Frankly, whenever I hear about a new web venture whose "innovation" is that instead of watching the show on your TV, you get to watch it in a YouTube window, I wonder if the big media companies wouldn't be better off just building a big, Brewster's Millions style cube of cash and then lighting it on fire.

At least you could charge tickets to that.

As for the amateur stuff...



I guess it's better than the programming on VH1. But, then, so is diarrhea.

That's the problem with current web programming. On the one hand, you have old-school TV thinking: throw buckets of money at a slick production with huge names and then hope for millions of viewers so you can earn that money back. On the other, you have crazy shut-ins with access to video equipment. Neither, so far, is a very effective money-making scheme.

Laporte, I think, is the happy medium between "slick production" and "crazy shut-in."

Here's what he does right:

1. He comes from a broadcasting background.

He's not an amateur. Unlike most of the dopes who bought a MacBook with a webcam and figured the world couldn't wait to watch them type, Laporte comes from the traditional broadcasting world. He knows how to be entertaining on camera, and his radio-friendly voice sounds like a sack of purring kittens dipped in a vat of warm honey.

2. He keeps his operation nimble.

His "studios" are well apportioned, but, still, they're in his basement. His guests are Skyped in. He's got no Hollywood-style entourage surrounding him (though you could make the argument that John C. Dvorak is kind of like Johnny Drama). I don't have budget numbers on what it takes for him to produce his content, but when you consider that an hour of The Tonight Show costs approximately $400,000 before you factor Leno's salary, Laporte's set-up has to be peanuts by comparison.

3. He focuses on a niche-market.

"Niche", of course, is just another word for "nerd." Most of Laporte's shows are built around the shiny, technical doo-dads that bore the hell out of my wife. She walked in on me watching TWiT one day, and I think she was disappointed that I wasn't watching porn.

But it's that niche market that allows Laporte to make money despite his small viewership. Laporte can give advertisers realistic assurances that the people they want to reach are watching his programming.

(By the way, all it would take for my wife to board the internet crazy train is for one smart online broadcaster to start a show about romance novels set in 18th century Ireland).

4. He has built an online community.

And no, I don't mean some grafted-on social networking BS. People watching his shows are in constant communication with both each other and the guests appearing on them. This isn't Wolf Blitzer numbly reading emails on CNN (presumably while thinking about how wicked-awesome his beard is), this is actual real-time communication.

5. He actually knows something about the internet.

If it wasn't for the video of him doing the show, I'd have thought that Laporte was less a man than a giant brain connected directly to digg.com. He's not a studio executive getting a 15-minute PowerPoint about what Web 2.0 means, he's a die-hard information junkie. Laporte is therefore positioned to anticipate trends better than any studio-financed focus group.

6. He's his own man.

No studio to answer to and no money people to sweat through their three-piece suits means that Leo Laporte can talk about whatever controversial subjects he wants to, without fear of reprisal. Of course, he never talks about controversial subjects (with the possible exception of non-pasteurized cheese on Munchcast), but the point is he could if he wanted to.

--

These six items add up to the future of television. Maybe.

The days of monolithic viewership are just about over. Studio productions with gigantic weekly overhead are already starting to look like dinosaurs coughing on iridium-soaked dust. The economics of the web just don't seem to easily facilitate those types of shows.

Yet, people aren't going to want to watch the Chocolate Rain guy every week either. They demand competence.

So, this is what I see coming in the next few years: a legion of Leo Laportes. I think we'll see garage-style productions that are a huge step above the average moron's USB camera, but fall just short of a big studio production (though, as the technology improves, the gap will get ever smaller).

I think we'll see more narrow focus. Think The Food Network, except narrower. The Salad Network. Or better yet, The Caesar Salad Network.

And, most interestingly, I think we'll see traditional media stars making the leap into self-produced video.

Laporte has proven that the money can be there without the studios. If even half of the rhetoric that creative types spout off about the need for "freedom" is true, there's no good reason why a semi-famous face from traditional TV wouldn't want to make the leap into a Laporte-style online venture.

Imagine a Howard Stern or a Bill Maher without any corporate masters to answer to. Or, better yet, imagine Joss Whedon creating something without having to worry about Fox stomping all over it.

I've seen the future and it's full of TWiTs.

Or ... maybe not. I'll be the first to admit that I'm pretty quick to jump onto any new fad that looks even remotely like something I might have read about in a science fiction book (I was convinced that TEN was the future of online gaming and that Hypercolor was the future of temperature sensitive clothing).

I could be wrong, though. Maybe Hulu is the web's equivalent of the DuMont network and we'll all be watching traditional TV on our computers. I realize that I'm blinded by both my Laporte fandom and my hope that the future of the internet is going to bring us something altogether different than the broadcasting model that brought us I Love Money 2.

Just do me a favor and check out what Laporte is doing and report back here. Is it the future? Or would we all be better off with the supervolcano?

[Note: Marmot pointed out in the comments that Laporte does not broadcast from his basement, but, rather, from a leased commercial space near his home. Now if someone could crowdsource me the winner in Sunday's Eagles/Giants game, I'd appreciate that as well!]

Jay Black is a writer and comedian who's best known as the cardboard cut-out that convinced millions of people that there was a "ghost" in "Three Men and a Baby". For more information or to check out one of his live shows, visit www.jayblackcomedy.com.