Ben Sledge of Germantown, Md., inadvertently got caught in the "Lost" trap when he created what he thought would be a personal website, lost.cubit.net, to keep track of the show's chronology. As more people downloaded the page, the Web developer and independent filmmaker was forced to expand it. The site had 836,000 downloads in October and 798,000 in November.
Other shows have gone above and beyond communicating with fans. "Six Feet Under" producers regularly wrote eulogies for the people who died on the HBO drama, and its website included detailed back stories of the show's characters. Writers of "Nip/Tuck" recently posted a blog on myspace.comfor the Carver, the show's topical serial killer. "How I Met Your Mother" writers have penned Barney's blog, a spot on cbs.com, where fans can keep up with the character's shenanigans. In this new world, TV writing isn't just about turning in scripts.
"The job of being a television show-runner has evolved and there's all these new aspects to it," Cuse said. "It's good because there are additional avenues open for content. We have ways of expressing ideas we have for the show that wouldn't fit into the television series. But it's hard to manage our time. And we honestly put most of our time and attention on the show itself -- that still is the bread and butter of our existence."
As technology has opened up the possibilities for accessing a TV program, the paradigm for marketing television shows has shifted, turning marketers and producers into partners.
In the spring, Disney-owned Hyperion Books will publish its second "Lost" book, a novel written by the passenger who got sucked into the engine in the pilot. The passenger, Gary Troupe, had e-mailed a manuscript to his publisher, and another copy will be found on the island, Lindelof said. Who actually wrote the book won't be revealed.
Writers who now suddenly find themselves blogging for their characters, creating novels for them or sharing perspective on a website will eventually need to be compensated for the extra work, Cuse said.
"That is very much going to be at the forefront of all the new labor negotiations, particularly with the Writers Guild, because writers are at the center of television series production and all of these new ideas are ultimately writer-based," Cuse said. "Right now, our involvement in this is about being involved in the cutting edge of these emerging technologies and learning how it works."
Just as iTunes transformed the music industry by turning singles into a viable revenue source again, Cuse and Lindelof believe their show is at the forefront of the television revolution.
"We're exploring a new frontier here in a lot of ways," Lindelof said. "So it's best to see what it is first, as opposed to everybody walking up to the cash register and saying, 'Pay me, and then we'll do the exploring.' "
