NSFW Web Series Inks TV Deal

8 Aug 2009

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Web TV is the underdog in the entertainment world. Often times great talent is forced to find a home and an audience online, sometimes after being rejected by more mainstream outlets. The best a web series can typically hope for is the success that The Guild has seen over the past year.

Very rarely, however, does a web series get to break the mold and make it on your small screen (remember Quarterlife on NBC?). It’s incredibly remarkable, then, that Pure Pwnage, the NSFW long-running character-driven web series, is announcing that they’ve inked an eight episode deal with Canadian TV’s Showcase.

Pure Pwnage’s 8 episode stint on Showcase will air in 2010, and the immature duo — main characters Jeremy and Kyle — have made a video short announcing the deal. The online series originally debuted back in 2004 and follows the fictional professional gamer, Jeremy, his brother, and their gamer friends. The show reportedly pulls in over 200,000 monthly viewers, and has a cult online following of dedicated fans.

Showcase is a part of CW Media, and though unknown in the states, it’s a channel that airs popular television series like The Office and Weeds. According to web TV blog, Tubefilter, the Pure Pwange fan base stateside will eventually be able find the episodes in iTunes. The site interviewed Geoff Lapaire, Pure Pwnage director and co-star, who also noted that, “We are hoping that there will be enough interest in the US to convince someone to pick up the show there.”

Interestingly enough, Lapaire attributed the studio’s interest in their show to a live screening, saying “A studio executive came to one of our live screenings at the Bloor Cinema in Toronto and was completely blown away … About 600 fans showed up to watch that particular episode, and the energy at our live screenings is always mind blowing.”

We’re pretty impressed by the deal, which will hopefully pave the way for more made-for-the-web content to find a home in front of mainstream audiences. Hopefully Pure Pwnage will fair better than the web to TV flop, Quarterlife.

Tags: pure pwnage, tv, Web TV