Netflix, Hulu launch original video programs

Original online TV programming gets a boost this month as big-name tech companies make a push into territory that historically has been the realm of TV programmers.

These new series look like traditional TV shows, but you won't find them on a broadcast or cable network. They're shows made to be viewed online and via broadband streaming.

This week, Netflix debuts its first original series, "Lilyhammer," which will be followed next year by a fourth season of the former Fox comedy "Arrested Development." YouTube already has launched several new niche-content "channels" dedicated to original programming, and on Feb. 14 Hulu debuts its first original scripted series, "Battleground," about a political campaign in Wisconsin.

While these series represent new steps for their content providers, they don't mark the first attempts at original online programming. Sony's Crackle.com and Warner Bros.' TheWB.com have tried to get Web surfers to watch their original series since August 2008, with limited success. "Children's Hospital" began on the WB before its migration to TV's Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, but the WB series "Blue Water High" and "Sorority Forever" didn't attract much notice.

Blame it on a lack of marketing, but also because the WB is not the sort of destination that Netflix and Hulu have become. Hulu averages 30 million monthly users; Netflix streamed 2 billion hours of video in the last three months of 2011, according to the Associated Press.

Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos said his company's programs will be of high quality and indistinguishable from programs made for TV networks. Netflix also will use customers' ratings of past TV shows and movies as a guide to steer them toward original programs, such as "Lilyhammer."

"We don't have to cast a huge net across our subscriber base," he said. "In personalizing, it's a way to present the show to the most likely audience."

Steven Van Zandt -- Sil on "The Sopranos" -- stars in "Lilyhammer" as New York mobster Frank "the Fixer" Tagliano. He rats out his boss and joins the federal witness-protection program, moving to Lillehammer, Norway, which he chose because he liked the looks of it on telecasts of the 1994 Winter Olympics.

The first season of "Lilyhammer" consists of eight episodes, and they're all available at once to Netflix members, allowing the opportunity to gorge on the series in the same way TV fans devour a full season of a series on DVD over a weekend. Initially, "Lilyhammer" will be available only via Netflix streaming; a DVD release will follow at some point.

For Hulu, original programming is a next step in the company's mission to help people find and enjoy the content, when, where and how they want to, according to Hulu senior vice president of content Andy Forssell.