Some patterns are emerging in this week's NewFronts, in which tech companies are presenting their new slates of online-TV s hows: Yahoo is going big on live entertainment, Microsoft is going after gamers, and AOL is using celebs to jazz up a documentary and reality-based line of shows.
AOL introduced 12 new shows slated to debut in the coming year and announced four series that are returning for second seasons. Few of the shows are tightly scripted; most are anchored by a single star.
Many of the shows focus on heart-warming themes. Zoe Saldana goes back to the Dominican Republic to pay tribute to her mom. Portia De Rossi and Kevin Nealon teach little kids to be funny, and punk musician Laura Jane Grace describes her life as a transgender woman. To mix it up, however, AOL also offers a show where Nicole Richie gets silly with her Twitter followers and Mike Epps asks awkward questions about racial stereotypes in America.
New AOL online shows
1. "Park Bench," with Steve Buscemi (spring)
In this 12-episode series, quintessential New Yorker Steve Buscemi ("Boardwalk Empire") goes about town interviewing both famous friends like Rosie Perez, Chris Rock and Julian Schnabel, as well as what AOL calls "average New Yorkers." Buscemi calls "Park Bench" a "talking show," and presents it as an informal twist on the classic talk show. "But most of all, it's a peek into the alternative life of Steve Buscemi," says a promo reel. Basically, if you like Steve Buscemi and you like New York, this show is meant for you.
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2. "Making a Scene," with James Franco (summer)
Proudly eccentric polymath James Franco ("127 Hours," "Spiderman") shows his love of movies by re-enacting scenes from his favorite flicks. It's like "Be Kind Rewind" meets, well, James Franco. An odd twist is that Franco sometimes takes a character from one movie and puts him in a scene from another — for instance, Napoleon Dynamite in the middle of "Pulp Fiction." You can watch Franco do this 10 times starting this summer.
3. "My Hero" (fall)
Get the Kleenex handy. This 10-episode series, hosted by Zoe Saldana ("Star Trek," "Avatar"), shows celebs going back to their hometowns to honor a special someone who changed their lives. AOL teased the lineup with clips of the segment in which Saldana visits her mom in the Dominican Republic. "At some point in everyone's life, they meet someone that they connect with on a deep … level, someone who makes the impossible possible," s aid Saldana as she introduced the show.
4. "Inspired" (fall)
In another celebrity look-back, famous people recall what AOL describes as the "stories behind their biggest moments of inspiration." As a preview, Olympic skier Bode Miller took the stage to introduce his segment, in which he makes a comeback at the Sochi Olympics, becoming the oldest medalist (at 36) in Olympic alpine skiing.
5. "Laugh Lessons" (fall)
In another heart-warming show, Kevin Nealon ("Saturday Night Live") and other comedians, such as Portia De Rossi ("Arrested Development," "Ally McBeal"), coach kids on how to be comical. "Are people born funny, or can they be taught [to be] funny?" Nealon asked the crowd at AOL's unveiling. "And if they can be taught funny, how can that help them in their life?" Expect lots of vignettes of avuncular Nealon and other celebs cracking up with school kids.
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6. "That's Racist" (fall)
In what might be AOL's edgiest show, comedian Mike Epps takes on racism by investigating and joking about stereotypes. For instance, he asks Asians if they know karate and explores the relationship between African Americans and fried chicken. "I wanna know where stereotypes came from," said Epps in a teaser. "We're all the same in our veins," said Epps when he presented the show, saying that stereotypes shouldn't define people. The 10-episode season starts in the fall.
7. "So Much More" (fall)
Punk rocker Laura Jane Grace, née Tom Gabel, tells the story of how she came out as a transgender woman in 2012. The 10-part series follows her on a new-album tour during which she meets up with transgender men and women who share their stories.
8. "The Road to Disrupt" (fall)
AOL promotes one of its own websites, TechCrunch, with this documentary about the site's Disrupt tech conference. The 12 episodes follow five new tech co mpanies that competed for a funding prize in the Startup Battleground at the 2013 conference.
9. "Win/Win" (winter)
Director Mike Tollin ("Smallville," "Coach Carter") introduced a new show that pairs professional athletes with business titans. Sports teams are run like businesses, said Tollin, and businesses are run like sports franchises. "Increasingly, our top athletes want to hang out with top business leaders," Tollin said, promising to show in 10 episodes that "exciting interplay when captains and kings get together."
10. "In Short" (spring)
Unlike the other AOL originals that follow the hosted, multiepisode format, "In Short" is a collection of documentaries to be presented this spring. The twist: Each is directed by an actor, such as Katie Holmes ("Dawson's Creek," "Batman") or James Purefoy ("The Following," "Rome").
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11. "Connected" (early 2015)
AOL bills this program as its first long-form reality show, which will have 20 30-minute episodes, starting in 2015. Inspired by the Israeli show of the same name, "Connected" asks five New Yorkers to film their lives for six months to show "the individual and deeply personal connections that create the larger story of who we are as a society."
12. "HuffPost Deep Dives" (time frame unknown)
At NewFront, HuffPost Live President Roy Sekoff made an impassioned case for why online videos — even mobile videos — don't have to be supershort to fit people's attention span. Sekoff vaguely announced a new series of programs, called "HuffPost Deep Dives" as "a very in-depth approach [of] multiple episodes on some of the most important issues facing our country today."
Returning online shows
Of its 15 original online shows from last year, AOL is bringing back four of them for second season s.
1. "Candidly Nicole" (fall)
Sassy Nicole Richie continues her journeys in 10 episodes in which she meets up with her Twitter followers and learns about what they do and like.
2. "The Future Starts Here" (fall)
Filmmaker and Webby Award creator Tiffany Shlain examines technologies from cellphones to bionic limbs in eight episodes that show how they are changing who we are and how we live.
3. City.Ballet (winter)
Sarah Jessica Parker ("Sex and the City") continues her documentary on life inside the New York City ballet company, with 12 new episodes.
4. "Hardwired 2.0" (spring)
In this 10-part series, Internet-famous video blogger Justine Ezarik, aka iJustine, tries on every piece of wearable tech she can find to show what it's like to use and how she thinks you will use it someday.
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