Why the Internet Doesn't Work on TV

The Internet just wasn't made for television. NBC's much-ballyhooed "Quarterlife", based on the wildly popular Web series, posted the already-troubled network's worst ratings in at least twenty years and led to cancellation discussion after its very first episode. (Is this what's meant by a "quarterlife crisis"?) But it's not the first time this season that the Internet has failed to pull in viewers of traditional TV; earlier in the year, "Online Nation", which showed viral video clips, became the CW's lowest-rated program ever and the first cancellation of the season.

Merely trying to summarize the concept of "Online Nation" gives the savvy viewer a chance to guffaw and understand why it can't work: it's the same thing you already saw online months ago, except without you being in control. (YouTube with restrictions? Sign me up!) Yet network executives and TV producers saw this as a goldmine; at least two more programs intending to show YouTube clips on television were in the works. (Your correspondent knows, because he saw one of the pilots. Ssssh.)

Watching television requires a commitment; even in the age of TiVo, you still have to plant your butt on the couch and decide to go in for a half hour of content. It's a commitment as real as the choice to spend money to buy a magazine or see a movie. But Web visitors are fleeting and finicky, and will dart the second they don't like something. They are savvy consumers, but the attitude in the television world seems to be to treat them like some sort of oddity that can be accounted for in the same way as any other niche group. As if the Internet was a genre rather than a medium-as if making an Internet show was like making a cooking show with fewer stoves and more screens.