• The Wall Street Journal, Monday, November 19, 2007 10:48 AM

A Web-only show is making the giant digital leap from the Internet to network television. "Quarterlife", the creation of "thirtysomething" producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, is on its way to NBC starting in February or March, after its run on the Internet ends. Quarterlife is about a young woman who publishes a video blog to the Web that gets her into trouble with friends. It's a 36-part series and social-networking forum, with each episode running about eight minutes.

You don't often see something produced for the Web wind up on TV; "Quarterlife" is among the first scripted shows to cross that digital divide. However, it was always a possibility that "Quarterlife" would make it to network TV, as NBC was one of the project's initial backers as a minority investor. Zwick and Hereskovitz still retain creative control and ownership of the show.

The timing of the announcement is interesting, given the Writer's Guild of America strike. Zwick and Herskovitz are guild members, and so are their writers. Apparently, they've been striking, which makes today's announcement sound a little odd. Even so, the creators say they'll be able to make a separate agreement with the Guild that would allow his team to keep writing, because "Quarterlife" is primarily a made-for-Internet venture. On the other hand, the program's crossover success shows that media companies can turn to Web-produced programming while the strike continues.

Read the whole story at The Wall Street Journal »