In my recent post, I talked about Mischa Barton’s short-lived TV series, A Beautiful Life, which was cancelled after two episodes last September because it failed to reach the targeted ratings.
Producer Ashton Kutcher is refusing to give up on his show, because he believes that “Nobody knew [The Beautiful Life] was on for two episodes, so the rating on TV wasn’t happening.” He decided to put the series on youtube, believing that more than half a million people will watch it. Watch his message about the show here:
He was right. The first youtube episode got more than half a million viewers soon after it was posted in mid-December. Five episodes have already been released, and have earned almost three million views altogether.
TBL is a New York City drama is about the underbelly world of modeling—cutthroat competitions, go-sees, the glamorous and not-so-glamorous sides of running in heels. It’s like America’s Next Top Model turned into a Gossip Girl-type of series. The best part is: there are no screaming, overexcited Tyra fans.
The show stars Mischa Barton as supermodel Sonja Stone, Ben Hollingsworth as newbie model Chris Andrews, and Sara Paxton as the new “it” girl Raina Marrinelli. Other noteworthy cast members include Corbin Bleu (a great jump out of the Disney mold), Nico Tortorella, and Elle Macpherson.
Ashton, a former model himself, is not a newbie to web success. Remember how he turned Twitter into a household name when he was the first to hit a million followers? Now that TBL has proven its point that it is a must-see show, Ashton isn’t keen on getting it back to TV-land. The youtube-based TV show is so successful that it will run for the next six months, and Ashton believes he can lure in more sponsors.
Electronics company Hewlett-Packard is the show’s first sponsor, which helped scrap the 10-15 minute time limit per webisode. Each TBL episode lasts for a full 40 minutes in high resolution with no commercial breaks. Hey, that’s even better than looking for blurry online streamings of Gossip Girl and Glee!
Get hooked on The Beautiful Life here.
