It looks like a new TV show, Nobody's Watching—which looks pretty funny—is getting picked up by NBC based upon it's popularity on YouTube. Nobody's Watching, a show about two geeks with a fetish for sitcoms who get a carte blanche deal with a network to try and create their own, was dropped by the WB and posted on YouTube by someone loosely connected with the show.

Kevin Reilly, NBC's President of Entertainment, had been watching YouTube as a chance to test market response to Nobody's Watching. Obviously, he was impressed. On KCRW's The Business, Reilly said it's time for the two worlds of the Internet and TV to help each other. The value of the Internet, he says, is it "creates connections where none seemed possible before."

Using sites like YouTube as a way to experiment with new show ideas is getting at a symptom of a larger problem: The Industry is out of touch. Frankly, the decision makers in traditional media—stereotyped as white business executives in the Hollywood Hills—are coming off a period where they made money by projecting heightened reality for the average Joe. Take Friends. Many of us went through our twenties working the same jobs as the folks on Friends, but they had funny banter, great apartments, and beautiful people surrounding them. We did not, but it was fun to spend time with people who did for a half-hour each week.

The vast audience for The Networks lives in average places between the coasts. We're now saying, "Give me something more like me." Of course, these executives don't know "me." Their life isn't anywhere near mine. So they're using the Internet to connect. I think the connections Reilly refers to that weren't possible before are connections from guys like me to guys like him. It's good to hear NBC is listening.