‘‘Squeegees’’ started strong but faded to 3,000 Web hits by the fifth episode.

By BRIAN STELTER

Hollywood writers and producers once rushed to create new scripted series for the Web, called webisodes . The strategy seemed simple: make money by going straight to the Internet.
Months later, they are realizing that producing Web content may be easy but profiting from it is hard. While a small number of writers, producers and actors are making a living with webisodes, they are still a long way from establishing the form alongside television and feature films. The newfound industry lacks clear business models and standardized formats.
And so far, it also lacks audiences. Ask most average media consumers what Web shows they watch, and the reaction is likely to be a blank stare.
Webisodes are usually inexpensive to produce, costing a few thousand dollars for an episode. They are usually short, similar in length to a segment of a TV situation comedy. And they are usually distributed widely, from videosharing sites like YouTube to social networking sites like Bebo.
Most commercial webisodes rely on video advertising before, during or after the episode, or product placement and brand integration within the show.
A hit show has yet to be born. Even the medium’s first hit, Lonelygirl15, struggled to retain an audience. The Lonelygirl videos made their debut on YouTube in the summer of 2006. Initially, they reached millions of Internet surfers, introducing the concept of professionally produced webisodes. But the videos kept coming well after the buzz faded. On August 1, when the series ended with a 12-episode finale, hardly anyone noticed.
The lack of attention and advertising dollars may be an ominous sign for big media companies looking to offset lost television revenue by entering the Web video business. Nonetheless, more companies are dabbling in digital entertainment .
“Squeegees,” a 10-episode series by Stage 9, a digital subsidiary of the ABC network, about a group of high-rise window washers, illustrates the challenge. The show made its premiere in April on five Web sites. On YouTube, the second episode showed 312,000 views as of August 31, helped by prominent links on YouTube’s home page in April. By the fifth episode, the view count had dropped to 3,000.
Strike.TV will soon unveil shows by dozens of Hollywood writers. Rosario Dawson, one of the first prominent actresses to migrate to the medium, is starring in a new Web series paid for by NBC, the television network.
In a suite of offices in Los Angeles, Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried, the co-creators of Lonelygirl15, think they can recreate the success they had with that online character. Backed by $5 million in venture capital financing, the two men have founded EQAL, one of the digital studios vying to develop the next Web hit.
“All of the different pieces that have come together to make the traditional media industry - financing, production, distribution - are still being figured out online,” Mr. Beckett said.
For big media companies, the revenue raised by Web shows is “not the kind of money they are used to,” Herb Scannell, a former president of Nickelodeon, said.
Mr. Scannell now runs Next New Networks, a collection of niche Web video series. It is perhaps best known for Barely Political, an online channel starring the Obama Girl, a flirty young woman with a professed crush on the Democratic presidential candidate. Obama Girl videos now draw at least a million views each, making them an attractive buy for niche advertisers. Still, “we’re not seeing seven-figure deals yet,” Mr. Scannell said. “It’s still an emerging market.”
The industry needs better distribution models, more professional backing and financing, and third-party measurement of traffic. Perhaps most important, Web shows need promotional support. New television shows benefit from multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns; webisodes do not.
While the idea that webisodes should become more like television is anathema to some producers, Mr. Beckett says the medium needs an established set of formats. “On television, there are a handful of defined formats,” he said, citing half-hour situation comedies and one-hour dramas as examples. “I think formats will help codify what we are actually producing.”