Web-TV to promote local scenes

Here's a clever project that is a great way to promote local music, hangouts, and advertisers. However, it's labor-intensive, without much income so far.

You Oughta Be In Webcasts: "Scene six, take two. Action. 'I love the skulls on your shirt,' says a snooty designer. 'It's very Pol Pot chic.' On a recent Saturday in Brooklyn, the 11th episode of Web sitcom The Burg is being filmed in the Bushwick Country Club bar. A satire about the hipsters of the Williamsburg neighborhood, the show in five months has developed a small but hard-core group of fans, many of them the same arty twentysomethings the show skewers. Cast and crew may be working for free, but they aren't rookies. One is All My Children actress Kelli Giddish, and this shoot has all the trappings of a professional production....

"The Burg, for instance, already has viewers paying close attention to the bars the characters hang out in and to the songs on the show's sound track, which are produced entirely by local Brooklyn bands. Advertisers, including Dewar's, have approached the show's creator, Kathleen Grace, about running video ads ahead of the episodes. The rates are competitive with those of rich media ads offered on other sites, she says, but since they're based on the hits a site gets and her audience is only about 10,000 per episode, any ad revenue generated won't even cover her bandwidth costs, let alone pay the cast and crew. (The show is currently self-financed.)"

music scene
YouTube
tourism
music promotion
creative class
New York
Brooklyn
Williamsburg