Strike TV gets ready for September launch

Strike TV will have a full roll out next month and several new series have been added to those detailed in the launch slate, Peter Hyoguchi, founder of the online ‘network’ tells TBIvision.

A beta test of Strike TV is underway and Hyoguchi says a full launch will take place next month. Hyoguchi says there will be 125+ pieces of content and 40 new series at launch.

As well as the raft of projects already announced – which include House Poor from The Office writer/producer Lester Lewis – there are several new series.

These include Anyone But Me from L-Word, Thirtysomething writer Susan Miller and two episodes of the teenage lesbian drama have already been shot in new York with two more shooting next month.

There is also Life in General from General Hospital and All My Children writer Karen Harris. The soap is set behind the scenes on fictional hospital soap, Greenville General, which can also be seen on Strike TV.

LonelyGirl15 head writer Mary Feuer also has a Strike TV show With the Angels. The thirty-six episode series follows a girl from Arkansas who moves to LA to go to film school.

Hyoguchi and writing partner Christer Tucker have also created a pilot for Strike TV. Hyoguchi says it Me First. "We said ‘if you are going to launch a network you might as well have our own show’. It’s a spoof on Supernanny and about a deranged and megalomaniacal life coach."

At launch, the network will only screen projects from US guild and union-affiliated writers. But Hyoguchi says that writers from the UK, Australia and Japan have submitted projects and the plan is to open the network to non-US writers at a later stage.

Strike TV will sell advertising around the content and split the revenues with the producers, who retain all rights to the content after a three-month exclusivity period. The revenue split is 60-40 in favour of the creatives.

Hyoguchi says that the Strike TV team, which numbers about twenty, are also about to announce syndication deals whereby the content is seeded to third party sites.

The idea for Strike TV came during the recent Hollywood writers’ strike.

"At least 90% of Hollywood is out of work at any one time so Strike TV takes these people and says ‘it doesn’t cost any money to make your own content and distribute it’ and we have created a place for it," Hyoguchi says. "Essentially, it’s for artists to come together and create content and know it will not just be lost among user-generated content like on YouTube."