Napster meets ‘Star Search’

Fri., June 23, 2006

Scott Collins Los Angeles Times

Alongside videos of alcohol-drinking monkeys and balletic race cars, the newest Web sensation is a crooning Connie Chung.

On Saturday's finale of MSNBC's "Weekends with Maury & Connie," Chung sang a version of Bob Hope's old theme song "Thanks for the Memory" to her husband and co-host, Maury Povich.

A clip of the performance – complete with mood-setting candles and an accompanying grand piano – is one of the most popular clips of the week on the video Web site YouTube.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 500,000 people had viewed the video of Chung – a rating that might have saved "Weekends with Maury & Connie" from being canceled.

Decked out in a pink gown, Chung sings: "We came to do a show, for very little dough/ By little, I mean I could make more working on skid row/ That's cable."

Chung, 59, sang a similar tune for Dan Rather (with whom she briefly co-anchored the "CBS Evening News") when he was given an award in 2001, and did the same for former "20/20" colleague Barbara Walters when Walters left for "The View."

"All I want to be sure of is that viewers understood it was a giant self-parody," Chung, who enjoys singing because Povich "so hates it," says of Saturday's performance.

"If anyone took it seriously, they really need to get a life."

– Jake Coyle, Associated Press

When Brooke Brodack, a 20-year-old receptionist who lives in western Massachusetts with her mom and younger sister, started getting fan mail from Carson Daly’s people, she figured it was a joke.

But strange things can happen when you post goofy homemade videos of yourself on YouTube.com – the Web site that the TV industry can’t decide whether it should embrace or dread.

Daly, the former MTV phenom who hosts NBC’s late-night show “Last Call,” was noodling around on YouTube one weekend this spring when he told an executive at his production company to check out Brodack’s short video parodies.

An intense young woman with flyaway hair and a gap-toothed smile, “Brookers” had in eight months become one of the most popular hosts on the video-sharing site, which logs roughly 200 million page views per day.

One of Brodack’s videos, “Crazed Numa Fan!!!!” – a wry takeoff on the Internet lip-syncing craze inspired by the popular dance tune “Dragostea din Tei” – has been viewed more than 1.4 million times since October.

“I thought there was something extremely charismatic about this girl,” Daly said Friday. “Her directing, her use of music – it was very MTV to me.”

You can probably write the next paragraph yourself: Carson Daly Productions signed Brodack to an 18-month programming development deal.

To many in the industry, YouTube, launched in February 2005, and other sites like it are potential enemies – the TV version of Napster, whose early reputation as a song-piracy enabler made it a pariah to record companies.

After all, in addition to allowing people like Brodack to distribute their own work, these sharing sites also allow the free exchange of previously broadcast, copyrighted material – exactly the kind of stuff that studio executives hope to make big syndication and DVD dollars from down the road.

That’s why, in February, NBC asked YouTube to take down the “Saturday Night Live” clip “Lazy Sunday” – even though the site was largely responsible for turning the rap spoof into an Internet sensation. (NBC now sells “Lazy Sunday” for $1.99 on Apple’s iTunes site.)

And C-SPAN last month demanded that YouTube remove videos of Stephen Colbert’s infamous address at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

“Copyright laws can be a tricky and a somewhat complicated matter, but we want our community to be one where everyone’s creative rights are respected,” a YouTube staffer wrote on the company’s blog, explaining why the Colbert material was taken down.

But Daly isn’t alone in seeing YouTube as fertile frontier rather than pirates’ cove. Major TV studios have also started trolling YouTube and similar destinations for the next generation of acting and directing talent.

Twentieth Century Fox Television, producer of “The Simpsons” and “24,” has junior executives scouring the video-sharing sites.

“We also have a casting executive assigned to discovering new talent, and these sites can be particularly fertile ground,” says Jane Francis, senior vice president of Twentieth Century Fox Television’s boutique programming arm, Fox 21.

“While these efforts have not yet resulted in a major piece of casting or story idea or project,” she says, “we believe it is only a matter of time.”

In fact, the networks may need YouTube more than YouTube needs them.

The most-watched video on the site is “Evolution of Dance,” in which motivational speaker Judson Laipply spends six thoroughly silly minutes grooving onstage to song samples like “Kung Fu Fighting” and “What Is Love.”

Since April, the clip has been watched more than 24 million times – a viewership figure far larger than any current network sitcom can boast.

It doesn’t mean prime time will soon be filled with faux music videos by a teenager who borrowed his dad’s digital camera. As Daly put it, “I don’t think you’ll see a 30-minute sitcom made from someone’s bedroom.”

But at the very least, Hollywood’s gatekeeping practices might change.

“I just love it that no middleman is involved,” said Daly, who has yet to meet Brodack face-to-face but hopes to work with her on “webisodes” – Web-based video content – and other material.

“There’s no agent, nothing. The pipeline is direct. I think it’s going to exponentially change how the business is run.”

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