The Ashton Kutcher-produced CW drama “The Beautiful Life” only survived on television last fall for two episodes. Now the show is getting a second and more successful life online, and that could ultimately lead to the creation of new episodes.

Five episodes of the series, including three that never aired on television, were posted on YouTube in mid-December and are showing strong numbers. The first episode received more than a half million views, and subsequent episodes are gaining on it.

Half a million was the goal Kutcher set for the series when he made the executive decision to put it online.

“If we put this thing on the Web more than half a million people will watch it on the Web,” Kutcher said in a video message posted on YouTube last month. “I want this to be the first show ever that gets more viewers on the Web than it did on terrestrial television.”

It is.

The five episodes combined have been viewed about 2.7 million times in the three weeks they have been available online in their entirety. The New York City drama about the underbelly of the modeling world pulled in 1.5 million viewers on the CW for its premiere episode and 1 million for the second episode.

“Like everything on television, you’ve got to get a certain viewership to be viable, and the ratings just weren’t there,” said Andrew Wallenstein, the editor of digital media for The Hollywood Reporter.

Kutcher explained the poor television ratings by claiming that no one knew the show was on, despite a big media push the series got over the summer from several scandals involving star Mischa Barton.

“Here’s what happened, we put the show on TV and it ran for two episodes. Nobody knew it was on, so the rating on the TV wasn’t happening,” Kutcher said in his YouTube video post.

After the show was cancelled, Kutcher’s production company Katalyst Films approached YouTube about airing full episodes online.

“We were impressed by the show’s passionate following, despite the fact that only two episodes had aired on TV. We collectively agreed that we could breathe new life into the series by premiering it on YouTube,” said George Strompolos, YouTube’s strategic partnership manager.

Electronics company Hewlett-Packard stepped in as a sponsor for the show, partnering with “The Beautiful Life,” on its “Create Change” philanthropic program. As part of the arrangement, the show’s stars Elle Macpherson, Corbin Bleu, Barton and Sara Paxton recorded video commentary for YouTube about how they will create positive change in the next year.

Barton said she wanted to get her two dogs registered as therapy dogs. Paxton said she would become a vegetarian and replace her Range Rover with a hybrid vehicle.

YouTube users could upload their own videos about their personal goals. HP’s plan is for the videos and the message to go viral.

“The Beautiful Life” is scheduled to run for six months on YouTube and Strompolos says that so far the numbers are a good indicator that its popularity will continue to grow.

“It’s important to keep in mind that online audiences watch when they want to watch, so this content will continue accumulating views during its six-month run,” Strompolos said. “These videos are clearly much different than the two-minute viral clips that spread like wildfire across the Web. For an original long-form scripted drama being distributed online, this performance is very strong.”

Watching the show die a sudden death was tough on the up-and-coming cast members who are happy the taped episodes won’t be collecting dust on a shelf somewhere.

“It’s pretty exciting for our friends and family to be able to watch the episodes that never aired,” said Paxton, who plays the show’s female lead Raina Collins, a beautiful girl with a secret past. “After it was cancelled, a lot of fans were reaching out on Facebook and Twitter and asking where they could see the rest of the episodes. Now that it lives on the Internet, who knows what it will turn into. I don’t know what to expect out of it.”

Katalyst’s original expectation for the move online was to provide closure for the show’s creators, stars and writers, but now that the online success has mounted, Kutcher and his partner Karey Burke are considering various options for keeping the show alive.

“Now that the airing of the episodes on YouTube has been as successful as it has been, there are conversations about continuing with the show in some form or fashion. We haven’t had any discussions with the CW about bringing the show back, but anything is possible,” Burke said. “There certainly could be a short form version of the show that could live on the Web if our studio partners were interested in that and enough of the cast were interested.”

While YouTube hosts a vast amount of old television shows and original Web series, this is the first time a cancelled television series from the United States has moved onto the platform and is as much an experiment for YouTube as it is for Kutcher.

Beyond bringing new eyeballs to the already created episodes of “The Beautiful Life,” posting the show on YouTube is an invaluable investment in data gathering for Kutcher and Katalyst.

YouTube is able to collect information about the people who tune into the online episodes, including gender, age and what scenes a viewer engaged with the most. The data can inform the choices that Kutcher and Burke as producers make with future projects.

“It helps the content producer learn what matters most to their fan base,” said YouTube spokesman Chris Dale. “That kind of data is hugely valuable and helps make a better product in the long term.”

From CNN

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Watch “TBL: The Beautiful Life” on Youtube at www.youtube.com/TBL!

It was the first new series to be canceled this fall, but now “The Beautiful Life” has found a new life online.

Three episodes of the youth-oriented melodrama are on YouTube, including one that was never aired. The remaining two episodes that were filmed will have their debut next week.

“The Beautiful Life” is set in the glamorous modeling world of New York City and stars Mischa Barton and Sara Paxton. Ashton Kutcher is executive producer.

It premiered on the CW network in September to an audience of just 1.5 million viewers and was axed after the second airing drew even fewer viewers.

Kutcher says in a video statement on YouTube that he hopes Web viewership for the series will exceed its network-TV audience.

From ABC News

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“The Beautiful Life: TBL” on the runway is not so dead after all. The circulating rumor that the canceled series will be revived by The CW for summer 2010 has been confirmed by the Facebook team of the drama.

Although the words have surfaced since Friday, November 13, the official announcement was only made on Sunday. “We have somewhat good news. The CW will plan 2 air the remaining episodes of The Beautiful Life: TBL in America’s Summer Period,” read the message. “The bad news is there is still no plans of renewing The Beautiful Life. But that might change during the Months, or this year.”

“TBL”, starring Mischa Barton, Sara Paxton and Corbin Bleu among others, was yanked off air after airing only two episodes. The show indeed opened to a small number of audience in its September premiere with the rating going down 0.2 million from the first to the second episode.

The cast blamed The CW for not putting much effort to the promotion with them having to campaign through Twitters, red carpets and other appearances. The network itself has not given a press release to confirm the revival of the show.

From Ace Showbiz

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As was earlier reported by The Hollywood Reporter, the cast and crew were in the middle of filming the seventh episode when news broke last Friday that the show would be canceled. (Ironically they were ahead of production compared to other CW shows, even though they started two weeks late). Even more surprisingly, they didn’t hear the news first from CW brass. Nope, they heard it like the rest of us—through the media! According to our insider, the news was leaked to THR 10 minutes before executives informed producers the series was dunzo. Our source also added that a script for the eighth episode was finished and scripts for the ninth and tenth episodes were in various stages of completion.

Just like any soap, the first few episodes of “TBL” were setting the stage for all the juicy drama to ensue. In fact, starting with episode 3 the series was to take quite a sexy turn. “If they just aired the first four episodes, I think people would have been hooked,” our source said. But instead the series was strangled before it got a chance to breathe. Taking pity on us poor, abandoned viewers, our source answered five of our burning questions left in the series’ wake. WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS. If you’re holding out for an online run or DVD (though our insider said a DVD is highly unlikely with so few episodes in the can), you might want to click away NOW.

1. Who is the father of Sonja’s baby?
Claudia’s (Elle Macpherson, pictured) husband! Richard (played by Ed Quinn whom you may recognize as vampire Stan from “True Blood” or as Nathan Stark on “Eureka”) is the head of a large cosmetics company, and in the wake of Sonja’s scandal he decides to design a new makeup line called “Reinvention,” using Sonja as the face of the product. Though it appears he’s doing all of this to appease wife Claudia, he’s really doing it to get back together with Sonja. During a visit to Richard’s office, Claudia finds one of Sonja’s earrings, clueing her in to what’s going on. Sonja eventually leaves Claudia’s agency out of guilt because of the rekindled affair, though wouldn’t you know, several episodes later her new agency is bought by none other than Claudia, meaning the enemies are reunited.

2. Why was Raina’s (Sara Paxton) father in prison?
He’s the head of the Russian mob in New York and was arrested for racketeering!

3. Is Raina’s brother Alex (Billy Magnussen) sleeping with the fishes?
Alex apparently swiped a lot of money from the mob to buy a club. Raina makes a deal with their father that she’ll be a good daughter if Alex isn’t offed. Daddy Dearest accepts the offer but that doesn’t save Alex from wearing cement shoes! Alex is later done in by Raina’s ex-boyfriend Dimitri (more on him to come)!

4. Did Chris (Ben Hollingsworth, pictured) have to sleep on the floor or did he get to have a model slumber party in Raina’s bed?
Turns out the two don’t do the deed until episode 7 because Raina is skittish about sex after being heartbroken by Dimitri. And in a cruel twist of fate, the comely couple decide to have sex right as Alex is being murdered! If only they’d stayed at the party a little longer, they may have been able to save him.

5. What was the history between Sonja and Cole (Nico Tortorella)? It seemed like something was there, right?
We already know the two go back at least three years to when that photo of Sonja was taken doing cocaine. But Sonja and Cole are another pair who end up hitting the sheets in episode 7.

Man, that episode 7 must be something! Seriously, seriously juicy stuff, right? Our source also said we’ll miss Nico walking in a real Lacoste show, a photo shoot in the real Calvin Klein offices and Sonja’s halloween costume designed by up-and-comer Erin Fetherston.

The series was truly being embraced by the fashion industry, but it may have been neglect on the part of the network that led to the series’ ugly end. Our source said The CW put most of its ad dollars behind the trusted “Melrose Place” brand instead of the fledgling “TBL.” “We had zero advertising, whatsoever,” our insider said. Or at least, it didn’t compare to the deluge of press the reboot received. What a waste of the pretty.

From MTV

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You were effervescent and marvelous as the star of TBL. How do you feel about the CW’s decision to cancel your show so quickly?
We’re so shocked! I definitely think it’s unfair. The CW didn’t give our show a chance to succeed or fail. We had some amazing episodes coming up that we were all proud of, and the story lines were about to get really interesting, so we’re sad that no one will ever even see those! It’s unbelievable the way that they told us—we were all in the middle of work. I was sitting in the hair and makeup chair, and I’m getting my hair done just like a normal Friday—we were all excited for Friday. And all of a sudden, they got the call, and the producers had to make an announcement on set that we were done—that we were over! And I was sitting there in shock. I couldn’t believe that in the middle of work, the rug was pulled out beneath our feet. Immediately, I run over to Corbin’s [Bleu] room, and I’m like, ‘oh my God, oh my God!’ I was freaking out! And Corbin was shocked. Everyone was just devastated. It was horrible. Terrible.

You didn’t see this coming at all?
We were worried because our show didn’t get as much marketing as other shows. Everywhere you go in New York City, you see Melrose Place posters everywhere—I see Vampire Diaries everywhere. And CW, they just didn’t put any money into advertising for our show whatsoever. It was up to the cast to keep the show going, so we went to every red carpet, we talked about the show, we publicized, we did twitter, we did everything we could possibly do to get the word out about the show. We thought it was really worth it because we care about the show—we care about each other and we wanted to make it work. But if people don’t know that the show even exists, they’re not going to watch it.

Why do you feel they weren’t behind the show?
I have no idea. We wanted the same thing. We did the pilot, and when we saw the pilot, we were all so proud of it, and we really thought we had made something special. We’re a really talented group, and most of us have been working for a long time and have really good projects under our belts, and I just don’t understand why they would do this.

How do you feel about the CW’s decision not to air the five other episodes you’ve already filmed?
It’s a slap in the face! It’s almost like we were part of this family and now suddenly we’re dropped. I couldn’t even call the CW because they probably have my number on their caller ID and they’re like, ‘no don’t pick up, don’t pick up.’ It’s crazy. And oh my God, episodes three, four and five were going to be amazing. That’s what really sucks. You’ve got to have time to let a show get its legs and find an audience, especially when they’re putting zero dollars into advertising. And we were slowly going in that direction. Everyday I was getting emails from Japan and Brazil and the U.K from people who were buying the show on iTunes and were going nuts over it. And if they had just given it more time to really catch a fan base I think it could’ve been huge for the CW. I really think they missed out, and I really think they’re missing out on a huge opportunity for themselves.

And now they’re going to be airing Melrose Place in your place…
It’s hard because I don’t want to sound ungrateful for everything they have done for us, but I think especially since this happened Friday—it’s really hard for me not to be angry. I really don’t want to upset [CW President] Dawn Ostroff, because she is a really cool lady. I just don’t understand how they could do this.

Do you know how Executive Producer Ashton Kutcher feels about it?
I think he’s just as disappointed as all of us. This had his name on it, and it was his first scripted series. I don’t understand how they’ve given so many shows in the past a chance, and not ours. I mean why ours? Why us? It blows my mind. The saddest part for all of us is that we became friends beyond the show, and so we are sad that we don’t get to go into work everyday and have fun together. And honestly, we wanted people to just love the show. Everyday we came into work with a mission to do the best possible work we could do, and we did our jobs. It sucks that nobody can even see that. No one will even see the really cool things we did.

Do you have a message for the fans of the show that are devastated by this news?
Everyone that supported us—I know there’s a lot of people on Twitter who are really serious, and there’s a petition that has 8,000 signatures now—thank you so much for watching the show and for caring and believing in us. We really appreciate the fans and we are really thankful.

Do you know what your next project will be?

Are you kidding me? [Laughs]. We thought we were going to be here until December. Literally we packed up our lives from Los Angeles to New York. I spent two months and thousands of dollars without a paycheck moving to NY. And now they just say, ‘oh, peace, you’re done?’ We all signed 6 month leases, and now we all have to figure out how to get out of our leases, and I have to figure out how to get all my furniture back. I don’t know what to do with this NY furniture. We’re kind of stranded.

From Latina

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No word yet on whether the remaining episodes of the series will ever air or not…

I wish Sara and the rest of the cast and crew major success in their next endeavours! Don’t worry, we aren’t going anywhere and I’ll be working on the site completion as scheduled!

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How are you enjoying shooting The Beautiful Life in New York City?
I love it! It’s been absolutely incredible, and I’m having a really awesome time. I’m a California girl, so it’s such a great experience, and I feel really lucky.

Rumor has it TBL is shooting during New York fashion week. Has that been fun?
It’s amazing, but we’ve been so busy working that we haven’t had time to attend a lot of shows. But we’ve been working closely with Calvin Klein for a few episodes so I’m going to the Calvin Klein show tomorrow—and I am really excited!

Tell me about working with Mischa Barton.
She’s great! She’s a really cool girl, and a lot of fun to work with. The whole cast—we have a great time together. It’s crazy because we’re all such good friends that it’s actually really hard to make other friends in the city, because we’re all such a close group.

Are your characters rivals on the show?
Everyone thinks that our characters are rivals. We’re actually not. I’m actually Mischa’s only friend on the show. My character gives up this whole Versace campaign to her character in the very first episode, and therefore, Sonja [Barton] starts to trust Raina [Paxton]. They become friends!

In the premiere episode, your character got to wear a stunning red Zac Posen dress. Did you feel like a real model?
Oh my god. I couldn’t believe that I was wearing this, like, $50,000 dress and it’s so crazy because like three months later, I saw a model wearing the dress in Vogue, and I nearly died!

I think your performance in the show is amazing, and I particularly liked your chemistry with Ben Hollingsworth, who plays Chris Andrews. Are you two dating by any chance?
No [Laughs]. Ben is like my brother. Actually, it’s funny because whenever we have to do make out scenes, I’ll joke around like, “Ben, I just ate a whole onion—how do you feel about that? And he’s like: “Well, I just ate beans. How do you feel about that?” We mess with each other.

Raina has to deal with catty, jealous girls who envy her success. Have you ever had to deal with catty girls in your real life?
Oh, definitely. The fashion industry is completely different from the acting industry, but definitely the same as well, because there’s cattiness and competition just like in the modeling world. So I can definitely relate to that.

How do you deal with it?
No matter who you are, or what you’re doing, there’s always going to be someone that wants to be better than you. So I try to take the high road and be the bigger person. That way, you always win in the end!

Now that you’ve played a model, would you ever consider a career in modeling?
I have a lot of fun playing a model on television, and I love being an actress. I don’t think I could ever handle that world. It’s one thing going into an audition and being judged for your work. It’s a whole other thing going into a room and being judged on your looks. So I do not think I could handle it.

Are people often surprised when you tell them that you’re half Mexican?
Oh, they don’t believe me at all.

Why do you think that is?
I think its because they have this stereotype of what a Hispanic girl is supposed to look like, and I don’t fit that typical look.

Speaking of Mexicans, has anyone ever told you that you kind of look like fellow Mexicana Alexis Bledel?
I have been getting that all the time ever since Gilmore Girls came out. I have been chased down the street before with people yelling, ‘Alexis, Alexis, you’re blonde now!’ And I’m like, ‘No, my name is Sara and I’ve always been blonde!’

From Latina

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