Fox Broadcasting Partners With YouTube Channel

Big television networks are sometimes portrayed as being on one side of an invisible boundary, with Web video firmly on the other side. But that’s becoming less and less accurate, as an announcement on Tuesday by Fox Broadcasting and a YouTube channel called WIGS demonstrates.

WIGS, which was conceived last year as a channel for female-friendly dramas on the Web, is being taken under Fox’s wing. Fox will help sell advertising on the WIGS YouTube channel and distribute the channel’s videos to more people. WIGS will be an incubator for show ideas, with the expectation that some of its YouTube series could evolve into prime-time dramas.

Fox depicted the arrangement as an alternative â€" though not an outright replacement â€" to the traditional TV pilot process. Kevin Reilly, the chairman of entertainment for Fox roadcasting, has publicly criticized the process for being expensive and seemingly inefficient as it crams what could be many months’ worth of careful show development into a short period of time in the late winter and early spring. Of the many pilot episodes each network commissions, only a few become bona fide hits each year.

Mr. Reilly and other television executives have wondered for some time now if the Web could be a better way to develop new shows. There are already a few franchises that have made the leap, like Lisa Kudrow’s “Web Therapy,” an online series which Showtime reformatted for TV, and “Annoying Orange,” which the Cartoon Network picked up last year. Some other efforts have flopped. But barely a week goes by without an announcement about another: also on Tuesday, for instance, the cable channel AMC annou! nced a development deal with Nerdist Industries, the producer of “All Star Celebrity Bowling,” to potentially bring that Web series to TV.

WIGS is unique because Fox’s parent company, the News Corporation, made an initial investment in the YouTube channel when it was conceived last year. So did YouTube, which has seeded dozens of professionally-produced channels with millions of dollars in upfront financing. The companies declined to specify the amount of the investments, but the money helped attract well-known actresses to WIGS’s Web series. Julia Stiles was a star of one such show, called “Blue;” Jennifer Garner was a star of another, called “Serena;” and Virginia Madsen was a star of a third, called “Jan.”

Now WIGS has over 100,000 subscribers to its channel, a threshold that many other channel creators are still trying to reach. The channel has counted 22 million video views to date. But it hasn’t achieved much mainstream recognition yet, which Fox hopes to change.

The initial investment came from the News Corporation Digital Media Group, a division that has been dissolved as digital media becomes more important to the bottom line of every part of the company. In essence, the relationship between WIGS and the News Corporation is now being transferred to Fox, and then expanded. Fox on Tuesday called it a “programming, marketing and distribution partnership.” One might also call it educational, since WIGS has come up with ways to produce videos that look like TV without spending anywhere close to what Fox does.

In a news release, Fox said: “Under the terms of the partnership agreement, Fox will assume a collaborative role in developing and marketing the channel to grow its base of female viewers, with an eye toward building content that can be programmed on Fox and/or other channels.” Fox and YouTube will jointly sell ads for the channel.

Does that mean Ms. Stiles or Ms. Garner will appear on Fox’s prime-time schedule Maybe, but not rig! ht away. ! It seems as if WIGS will remain a Web-first organization. Or as Mr. Reilly said in a statement, “Our overarching goal is to create an ecosystem where creative people and ideas can find expression independently in the online environment, but benefit from the resources that the larger platform of the network affords.”

The film director and producer Jon Avnet, one of the founders of WIGS, echoed that sentiment in his statement. “We will continue to write, direct and produce quality scripted entertainment with many of the most talented actors, writers, directors and producers in our business for our YouTube platform,” he said. “Fox will allow us to expand our horizons and offer us limitless possibilities, which we intend to fully take advantage of in all traditional media platforms, as well.”

Fox executives said there were parallels between the WIGS arrangement and two previously-announced attempts to develop shows outside the normal pilot process. The first one is known inside Fox as â€Animation Domination High Def,” a Saturday night block of short-form animated shows. The idea was announced in early 2012 but it hasn’t shown up on the network yet. Fox says it will start in July.

The other parallel is to “The FOX Short-Com Comedy Hour,” which is what it sounds like: a bunch of short, scripted comedies, probably four per hour. When the format was announced in mid-2012, Mr. Reilly said, “Our end goal is to provide distinct comedy voices with a world-class platform to experiment, grow and perfect their ideas and to hopefully build them into mainstream comedy hits in the future.” The series is supposed to have its debut on Fox sometime this summer.