How Black & Sexy TV Is Becoming An Online Empire: Part II
Part II of our exclusive interview with Dennis Dortch, the Creative Director of Black & Sexy TV. Black & Sexy TV is the mothership for high quality online Black web series. Check out Part I of our interview.
JAM: How heavily does Black & Sexy TV donations? Does that really determine whether or not you’ll be able to create a web series or is it just a really great boost to help you keep going?
Dennis Dortch: It’s probably in-between. What we’re doing is a different model. You see a lot of people doing Indie Go Go campaigns before they even launch half of the time, which I don’t think is really the best idea. I think for us, we’re building a network and building a community. If we were doing one web series, it would be no problem. We would just pay for it.
We would have our little side jobs and we would do it ourselves. Because we’re running a network and community, it’s becoming a little bit out of control. It’s very expensive and not just in money but in time. So sometimes we have to buy somebody else’s time. For “Roomie Lover Friends”, we did a campaign for that because that show has the biggest audience. It also has the biggest expenses. These are working actors, who we pay. And then we have a higher production value and it costs a lot more in time and focus to keep that up. So that was necessary for us to move forward. We had to subsidize that particular project or it just wasn’t going to go forward. We had the opportunity to do so, so we did it.
With “The Couple” it’s, more about the movie. When you think about us and then you think about other people, we’re all trying to figure out how to monetize. And it makes more sense now than I think it did 6 months ago. Some people are making a web series, trying to get on television. Or just trying to get some attention, trying to get something on the real, trying to get practice.
We’re kind of like pioneers along with our White counterparts in figuring this out. No one’s really making any money or a lot of money on this thing. What they’re really doing is trying to build their base and then increase their empire and camp. So when there is money, you’re already here. You’re not rushing trying to get there. So for us to be able to continue, we talk about this everyday. We have to rely on the support of our fans. Just like public radio, they may get subsidies from the government but it’s not enough.
They always have to get support from their fans. Or they have to get some sort of support. Because it’s not commercial radio. I likened that to sort of the same type of model. Where you’re paying an amount of money for cable, the next step is really to think about subscriptions, which is where a lot of people get a little icky. Like, “Why should I pay for this?” That’s really where everything is going for all of us. Because that’s where Youtube is going, that’s where Vimeo has already gone.
Thinking about fundraising, that gets a little old and weary, running these campaigns. If we’re really in it for the long haul, we’re in it to stay. We’re not going anywhere. That’s kinda what we’re thinking about. How can it be a business? How can it be a monthly revenue, that is a relationship between our fans and ourselves? And I’m talking voluntary. I’m not even talking, “ You don’t pay, you can’t see.” It’s that sort of relationship where only a certain amount of people, just like a fundraising campaign are actually going to participate. Those people will be able to receive something extra, that other fans can’t. That’s kind of what the conversation has been lately with us.
JAM: Would it be similar to the iRoko TV model, where some videos you can see and some you can’t?
Dennis Dortch: Yes, we’re familiar with that model. I guess it would be like that. I think eventually it would be like that. It’s a little bit scary to jump right into that because you’re already giving it away for free. The premium content idea that iRoko has is the end goal. I think there’s a middle stage before that, which is basically like public radio. You’re asking for support in exchange for giving them something extra. I think that’s the middle ground. If you go too far and jump ahead of yourself, which I think some people have done, it can bite you in the ass. You have to inch people into thinking that this is really worth $2 or $3 a month. That’s the end goal but for now. It is about building an audience and support from the fans.
JAM: Would you all put your content on television if you had the ability to or do you want to keep most of your content online?
Dennis Dortch: Of course any opportunity that comes up, we’re going to explore it . It’s just not our business model. How many shows actually get to pilot? How much time do you spend to make it happen? And how many shows actually get picked up? It’s such a small percentage that it’s not really part of our business plan. But it can be part of what we’re thinking. And we are making moves for that, for one particular show it may make sense.
Even with my peers, some who I’ve talked to yesterday who are still in the television game seem very frustrated. So we’re not rushing. Because none of it makes any sense. It has nothing to do with merit. It has nothing to do with how good a show is. Those things don’t really apply, especially when it comes to Black content.
So the reason why we’re doing this, is because it’s an alternative to playing that game. We call this the “Wild Wild West.” Anything goes out here. We’re making the rules as we go along. When I say “we”, I don’t just mean Black & Sexy TV, I mean all of my peers from White, Black, Latino, Asian, all of us who are online doing this digital stuff.
Even some corporate money that’s coming in, whether it be major production company like Fox doing WIGS, they’re all trying their hand in doing this. They’re learning as they go along, making the rules as they go along and setting some type of standard or some type of execution.
We’re all learning from each other. That is where our focus is and we’re so excited about that. Because we know that TV is coming to the web. We know that TV is making that digital conversion. We know that people want to unravel from their bundled packaged cable.
Is it gonna happen tomorrow and everybody’s gonna throw their tv’s away? No. Is it happening more and more every year? Yes. So we know this is more future proof than trying to rush and spend your time trying to climb that wall that people wanna knock you down off of. And keep saying, “No, a little bit higher. No a little bit higher.” I don’t want to spend my time chasing something. I’d rather it come to me and it will be easier with some leverage.
So it’s important for us to build our audience directly. Before as a filmmaker, you were not able to distribute your films, by the distributor. You could but you couldn’t reach that many people. Tyler Perry was the only one who was doing it with his plays and a DVD mailing service. Right now, with the costs involved with web series, its not very expensive considering how many people you can reach around the world, it doesn’t actually take that much money to do it. That’s more exciting to me to be online, be a pioneer, figure this thing out, and figure out if there’s a different way to reach more people. People are doing it. Mostly it’s vlog material, its more personalities. They’re getting millions of viewers. The stuff we’re doing doesn’t really generate those kinds of views because it requires more people’s attention. But it has longevity.
The time you spend, spinning your wheels, you could be putting that towards your own thing. Right now, [web series] are in a place where even people that have money don’t know what they’re doing. They have no idea what they’re doing. It’s like an even playing field right now. Anything can happen. Suddenly you have a flood of people that watch your stuff. It’s amazing. It could be a steady growth and I think that to me makes more sense. That’s why we are so coy on these types of questions. That to me makes more sense than trying to jump into a game that doesn’t want me.
JAM: Do you any advice for people interested in starting a web series?
Dennis Dortch: Take off the hat of television. Don’t try to make a television series online. That’s the first thing. If you do that, 95% are really going to fail. Start thinking creatively in terms of content and think creatively in sense of marketing and building an audience. I think those two things are the most important. Whatever idea you have, figure out why someone would want to watch it. Why wouldn’t they be able to watch it somewhere else. Because if you can watch it somewhere else, on a platform that’s already established, you might want to think twice about doing it online. Because you doing it online is not going to make it special. Concentrate on audience building and think about your content. Discover why someone would want to watch you. It’s not being biased. You have to take yourself out of your own shoes and start looking at it as a person who really doesn’t care about you. I think most of the people that jump into this game are not thinking those things at all. I see them making those mistakes over and over again.
JAM: Do you all have any new projects or web series coming out?
We have some new series coming out but I can’t talk about them yet. But when we get them more established, we’ll be happy to share it.
Learn more about Black & Sexy TV at BlackAndSexy.TV. Watch their hit web series: The Couple, Roomie Lover Friends, That Guy, Hello Cupid and more.
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