A couple of comments in the meantime: yes, it would be nice for Chris to do a new post saying that our views are up since he wrote that we were cooling off. It would also be nice for him to reference his own post from September and acknowledge that quarterlife has reached the minimum benchmark he himself suggested for a hit-like performance — 100K views in a day.

Also — quarterlife was not “introduced online as a warm-up for its network debut,” as Mr. Stelter said in the Times article you quoted. It was conceived entirely as an Internet series. The NBC deal was made long after I spent my own money producing the pilot. I would like to believe that we will find enough viewers online to justify the expense of making the show, but this remains to be seen.

And while we’re at it — Chris inaccurately, and intentionally because I explained the circumstances, described quarterlife as a “failed pilot re-cut for the web”. Several of your commenters have picked up on this, so even though it’s been clarified numerous times, I’ll go through it again here: the pilot of quarterlife bears no relation whatsoever — other than the name — to the pilot we did for ABC three years ago. We threw out everything — story, characters, cast — and started from scratch, and conceived this new pilot specifically for the Internet. I would be happy to supply you with the script of the older pilot so that you can verify. Keeping alive the shibboleth that this is a busted pilot thrown on the net is a convenient and subtle way to make us look bad, and contributes to the sense that perhaps your website now does have an agenda against us. Ditto your snarky-ish last comment about boob shots. I’m an admirer of breasts (who isn’t?), and hold nothing against Roommates for showcasing them. My ironic comment was about the quality of their show, not their breasts, and the fact that they have a promotional tool — breasts on banners — that we don’t have. Mainly, though, you chose to end with a line that was absurd on its face, as you could have easily figured out: I would have had to be clairvoyant to add that image to raise views, since it was shot before we premiered.
At any rate, I know you take what you do seriously, as do I, and I believe it’s possible for two serious people to converse honestly and honorably, and I would welcome that opportunity. I’d be interested to hear whatever problems you have with our show or website or business model or anything else.
Best wishes,
Marshall

It’s audience isn’t really online and the quarterlife is a TV show that didn’t get sold – so they did it online – and now its going to jump to TV – not really on it’s merit or high traffic numbers – but because the developers of the show have aggressive agents and massive existing connections and track record with network TV. All of this against the background of a writers strike which has choked the pipeline of filmed scripted content.

quarterlife is a special case scenario in terms of online video – and yet the creators wish to compare it to other online shows and toot their own horns for trashing other shows in ratings (which it hasn’t) or in the deals that they get. (which it has)

Just on a purely production level – the show looks good – but not better than some other series that have come online.

Thanks for cutting through the PR and talking about the raw numbers and the genesis of these deals.

You know, you folks are just not nearly as smart as you think you are. As to your observational aside, for you to even imply that “Quarterlife” is gratuitous or exploitive in comparison to “Roomates” proves Mr. Herskovitz’s point exactly. Will Mr. Albrecht be doing a follow up story on how the viewing numbers have risen in recent episodes making his hypothesis of declining viewership arguably wrong, or is it simply enough for you to be able to plead your objectivity and stand by his speculative theory. Maybe Mr. Albrecht should point out that although viewership totals on some of the recent episodes have been among the highest, that a continued rise in the number views of the very first episode proves a drop off. Or maybe you might realize that since the episodes don’t air only one time like a traditional television show, the totals for any particular episode haven’t been finalized yet. But I wouldn’t expect you to understand something like that, after all its a new TV concept.

Oh, and one last aside of my own. Quarterlife has gotten multiple positive critiques from publications and online entities like the New York Times, Hollywood Reporter, Variety and NPR so I don’t think your insightfully cutting remark “Getting a little hungry for views, I guess?” will cause the people at Bedford Falls to loose a tremendous amount of sleep or effect the viewers of Quarterlife to tune out. It may however give a chuckle to some of the hundreds of loyal readers who must flock to this site on a regular basis. Sorry, didn’t mean to be crass.