Strike.TV Launches with Original Hollywood Shows

LOS ANGELES, October 29: An online venture that was formed at the
start of this year, during the writers’ strike, for original content from
well-known Hollywood creators has launched with a slate of series and
syndication deals in place with Joost and YouTube.

The
talent behind the first crop of series on Strike.TV hail from shows like The Office, The Daily Show
with Jon Stewart, The Wire, Californication, Medium, Cold Case, How I Met Your Mother and many others.
The site is delivering content in HD via the use of technology from BitGravity,
with a video player interface from Episodic. In addition to being available on
the Strike.TV website, content will be syndicated to YouTube and Joost, as well
as being available for viewing via the TiVo video download service.

The
first slate of content includes Global
Warming with Kristin Wiig and Aasif Mandvi, House Poor with Mindy Kaling and The Challenge with Bob Newhart, among others.

“We
recognized a real opportunity to provide high-quality, original content to
online audiences seeking entertainment,” said Peter Hyoguchi, Strike.TV’s CEO.
“We’re essentially building a real network in a virtual world. It’s
unprecedented and innovative companies like BitGravity and Episodic who are
helping Strike.TV achieve its goals. Not only is Strike.TV a statement about
the independence that the web medium brings to the creators, but it’s also a
direct response to the maturing tastes of the online audience who consistently
seek high-quality entertainment on the Internet. We now have one community
built around the theme of independence; one where tremendous storytellers can
entertain and where a global audience can watch content that rivals that on TV
and in theaters, anytime and anywhere, for free.”

In
line with Strike.TV’s roots as a charity whose purpose was to help individuals
impacted by the writers’ strike, the first three months of ad revenue profits,
with help from BitGravity and Episodic, will be donated to the Entertainment
Assistance Program (EAP) of The Actors Fund.

—By
Mansha Daswani