MUMBAI: VH1, Jack Black and the team from Channel101.com have announced the launch of weekly comedy program Department of Acceptable Media.
The user-generated content and material show will be responsible for a website that will launch in early 2007 followed by a 8 episode weekly TV series premiering on VH1 in the Spring of 2007, asserts an official release.
On board as coconspirators for The Department are Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab as executive producers, who teamed with Black in 2003 to cofound Black Channel 101, a Website dedicated to screening digital shorts made by novice filmmakers in a competitive forum. Benjamin Cooley will oversee for Electric Dynamite Productions.
VH1 SVP of films and scripted series Maggie Malina, will oversee television production for VH1, along with VH1 EVP production and programming Michael Hirschorn.
Each week viewers will see new three-minute episodes of six proposed TV series, most produced by the 'Department' staff, some produced by web users. Viewers will then be able to vote, via the Web site www.acceptable.tv, for three of those series to return with a new episode.
The three with the least votes are cancelled and replaced by three new pilots the following week. All shows acceptable and unacceptable will be shown on the website. The best of these shorts could eventually grow to a full series on VH1, adds the release.
Actor and series producer Jack Black said, "Over the years, Dan Harmon and Rob Shrab have assembled an incredible group of young filmmakers at their internet event, Channel101.com."
"They have mastered the art of the three-to-five minute entertainment power nugget. I am proud to be a producer of this breakthrough television series. This is the first show in TV history to be programmed by the audience," he added.
"The formation of the Department places VH1 and its viewers again at the forefront of the user-generated content revolution. VH1 tapped into the online video explosion early with our weekly Web Junk 20 series nearly a year ago. The show found the funniest videos on the internet and shared them with our viewers -- thousands of whom uploaded their own videos to us," said MTV Networks music group and logo president entertainment Brian Graden.
