Also posted at OpenLeft

Poor studio executives.  Even before the writers guild went on strike, the penny-pinching producers were couch diving for loose change to prop up their studios.  For more than two weeks, 12,000 entertainment writers have been out of the streets, clamoring for a cut of money the producers supposedly make from “promotional” videos published to the Internet.  They’re considered “promotional” because they’re not like the real thing shown on TV (even if there is original writing, like the mini-webisodes of The Office produced last year). 

On TV you can sell advertisements in the middle of shows, and that’s how the studios make their money.  But everyone knows you can’t make money on the Internet.  It is a completely unexplored revenue stream. 

Two brave studios are taking a plunge into the unknown depths of the Internet – NBC and Fox created a joint video venture called Hulu that functions like a closed-YouTube for promotional video clips from both studios.  The website just started releasing beta invites for people to start exploring the site, and as you can clearly see from this screenshot evidence below, there is absolutely no money to be made from showing videos on the Internet.

Oh, that ad?  That’s, uh, ... that’s a … LOOK OVER THERE!

Ahem.  Let me repeat myself.  There is no money to be made from the Internet.  The writers are greedy – they already make an outrageous four cents for every $20 DVD sold, and now they want the same formula applied to Internet videos.  Four cents?  How can these impoverished studios afford that?  Let’s ask the executives themselves:

So you hear that, writers?  Get off the picket lines and get back to work — the producers have money to make on the Internet not on the Internet.

(Thanks to Matt Ortega for the screenshot.)