Subscription Funding for TV and the Webseries
One of the more fascinating elements of the World Wide Web is how the most innocent and offhanded of comments can rip through the stratosphere and take on a life of their own. Actor Nathan Fillion’s interview with Entertainment Weekly in February 2011, in which the Castle star reflected on his role as Captain Malcolm Reynolds in the short-lived FOX drama Firefly, is a perfect example. “If I got $300 million from the California Lottery,” he told the magazine, “the first thing I would do is buy the rights to Firefly, make it on my own, and distribute it on the Internet.”
Although the Joss Whedon-created “space western” only produced a total of fifteen episodes in 2002 before the network pulled the plug and cancelled the series, a fanbase known as Browncoats have kept the flame alive for both Firefly and its 2005 big screen motion picture Serenity. Browncoats have a large and vocal presence on the Internet and it wasn’t long before a group of them grabbed onto Fillion’s comments and launched both a website, HelpNathanBuyFirefly.com, and a movement to resurrect the cult classic. According to CNN, in only five days the group’s Facebook page had amassed 33,000 members. More importantly, a significant number of those fans pledged funds to help produce more episodes if the former Malcolm Reynolds ever made good on his promise.
Of course the odds of that happening are extremely small. Forget about the chances of Nathan Fillion actually hitting the lottery, or the fact that both he and other actors from the show are committed to other projects, or that Joss Whedon himself helming the upcoming Avengers blockbuster—it’s doubtful that FOX would ever even consider parting with the franchise. Firefly, for instance, is scheduled for broadcast on the Science Channel in March 2011 and DVDs of the series have been steady and consistent sellers since their initial release in December 2003. Why would FOX part with such a cash cow?
The Browncoats behind the “Help Nathan Fillion Buy Firefly” movement appear to be aware of this but they also sense the potential for future installments of the sci-fi drama being produced outside mainstream television methods as well. “Joss paid out of pocket to make Dr. Horrible, and it’s not only paid him back, it’s paid the folks involved,” the group told CNN in regards to Whedon’s 2008 webseries musical. “We’d like to see him be willing to let fans become his pocket and revisit Firefly.”
By “become his pocket,” what the main advocates of the movement are referring to is a subscription model of production, and they are not the first to raise such a possibility. In June 2006, author and media studies professor Henry Jenkins made a similar argument on his blog. “Let’s say that Joss Whedon, creator of Firefly, wanted to bring the series back to air,” he wrote. “Let’s say he found a million Firefly fans online—and, trust me, they’re not hiding—who were willing to pay, say, $39.99 each for a sixteen-episode season of Firefly. (Not an unreasonable price, given how many people pay about that amount for full seasons on DVD.) Suddenly, Joss Whedon’s got roughly $40 million to play with—and he doesn’t need a network. Or a time slot. Or advertisers. He can beam the damn show right to your computer if he wants to.”
Jenkins estimates that one episode would cost approximately one million dollars to produce, but even at a more pragmatic two million, the funds raised through a pre-subscription model would not only cover the sixteen episodes that he proposed but net Whedon and his associates a tidy profit as well. Consider it a win-win-win scenario—the fans get the additional episodes they want, Joss Whedon gets to continue the Firefly saga on his own terms and everyone involved makes money.
“Is it a risk to go this way?” Henry Jenkins concludes. “No doubt—all the more so because no other television show has ever done this before. What I am suggesting here is a way to rewrite the rules of American television. It hasn’t happened yet. It may happen some day.”
Jenkins was not the first person to propose such a future for the television industry, however, as San Francisco Chronicle journalist Matthew Wheeland speculated on the very same possibility in September 2004. “The time is ripe for some forward-thinking television auteur to give the network middleman the old heave-ho and release a new series straight to DVD,” Wheeland boldly proclaimed. “This idea is less a possibility than an inevitability. The technology is primed, the people are ready and the time is now. Fans of intelligent television, we have nothing to lose but network commercials.”
So why hasn’t it happened? First of all, it would be realistically difficult to get one million fans to plunk down $39.99, as Henry Jenkins suggested, on an unknown commodity. The creator of such a series would have to not only have a rabid fanbase who both trusted that creator but was willing to spend the cash sight unseen. Could Joss Whedon do it with an existing brand like Firefly? It is a possibility. Could he do it with a brand new, unrelated television series? His fanbase—which not only includes fans of Firefly but his other creative endeavors, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Dollhouse—is potentially strong enough, but whereas Firefly racked up 3.1 million viewers during its short run on FOX, the more recent Dollhouse had a significantly smaller number.
J.J. Abrams, who co-created sci-fi favorites Lost and Fringe, is another television auteur with a large and loyal fanbase who could conceivably produce a series without a middle man or network to broadcast it on. In his San Francisco Chronicle article, Matthew Wheeland likewise mentioned Seth MacFarlane (Family Guy) and Matt Groening (The Simpsons). After that, however, the list of potential creators starts to run dry. One million people may not seem like a lot when compared to the number of viewers that tune in and watch a free episode of CSI on CBS, but it is when you are asking them to give you forty dollars with only the promise of being entertained in return.
That is not to say that a subscription method is not possible, just that the goals need to be smaller in order to be practical. Many webseries and independent films, for instance, already raise funds in advance in a simplified version of the model via the website Kickstarter. Anyone with a creative project in need of funding can create an account, then choose the amount of money desired and a deadline for raising the funds. Fans, Web-savvy individuals and the general public at large in turn make financial pledges towards the project—if the goal is met within the registered timeframe, the money is collected and sent to the project creator. If it is not met, however, the pledges become null and void and no funds are collected.
Even on Kickstarter, it is the proven commodities that have the best chances of raising the funds needed for their projects. Justin Kownacki, for instance, raised over three thousand dollars on Kickstarter for his second webseries, The Baristas, but had already amassed an online following by creating one of the first on-going webseries with Something to Be Desired, which ran from 2003 to 2009. Joe Wilson, meanwhile, fell short on his goal of raising ten thousand dollars for a second season of Vampire Mob, only to later wrangle the necessary funds by soliciting donations on his own website from followers of the highly entertaining mash-up webseries.
Then there’s the independent webseries Venice, which relies on fans to cough up ten dollars per season to watch the show online. Amazing enough, GigaOM reports that eleven thousand people paid the fee for the webseries’ first season and close to that same number for its sophomore effort. The self-sustaining success of Venice, however, likewise relies on an already built-in fanbase—those of the long-running daytime soap opera The Guiding Light which went off the air in 2009. Venice creator Crystal Chappell was an actress on the actual series and her character Olivia Spencer was romantically involved with Jessica Leccia’s Natalie Riviera. Fans wanted to see the storyline continue and while the names of the characters may have changed on Venice, the plot remains the same, as well as the actresses.
Although Venice may have proven that a subscription-based model of financing can indeed work, it also shows that a built-in audience is also necessary if a webseries is to be self-sustainable. The same holds true for Kickstarter and /or any other method of raising pre-production funds as Justin Kownacki and Joe Wilson also prove. And while The Baristas and Vampire Mob can be considered success stories, the money raised still pales when it compares to the amount needed to fund the production of a bona fide television series—to say nothing of how miniscule the eleven thousand subscribers to Venice looks when compared to the one million that Henry Jenkins says it would take to re-launch Joss Whedon’s Firefly.
“In this ideal DVD-based world, high-quality shows will eventually reach a critical mass and will percolate to the cultural surface, and word will spread beyond the Web. If a show becomes popular enough, it will redefine the delivery service and restructure old media roles.”
Matthew Wheeland wrote those words for the San Francisco Chronicle in September 2004. Over six years later, the new world order that he advocated has to yet to come to pass. Could Nathan Fillion change the dynamics of the television industry with the self-production of new episodes of Firefly? The answer could very well be yes.
Of course, he would have to hit the lottery first in order for anyone to truly find out.
Anthony Letizia (February 28, 2011)
Discuss on the alterna-tv.com Forum
