Minisode Network

The Minisode Network is an Internet-based service launched by the Sony Corporation and its production studio, Sony Pictures Television in June 2007. The word “Minisode” sounds to portmanteau of “Mini” and “Episode.” As the name of the service suggests, the Minisode Network offers mini shows; initially, the Minisode Network offered the mini-shows for an exclusive run on MySpace.

The Sony Television’s Minisode Network consists of a lineup of tightly edited versions of shows lifted off the shelves of Sony’s television library. Sony has abridged the length of its full version shows to create its mini shows for the Minisode Network. The “mini shows” on the Minisode Network are clips of the shows, but actual episodes with beginnings, middles and ends; all told in under six minutes. Sony names these shrunken slices of television shows as “minisodes.”

Sony Television holds the rights of most of its old era television shows. The Minisode Network distributes the condensed versions of old era television shows from Sony’s television library; some of these shows include “Charlie’s Angels,” “T. J. Hooker,” and “Starsky and Hutch.”

The idea of Minisode Network sprang from a casual conversation between Steve Mosko, the president of Sony Television, and another Sony Television executive, John Weiser, the head of distribution, who were talking about how people liked watching snippets of entertainment on Web sites like YouTube, rather than entire shows. Their idea got a boost when they saw the "Seven-Minute Sopranos," a condensation of the 77-hour HBO series posted on YouTube in March.

“Charlie’s Angels” on Minisode Network is, as Mosko narrated, “They have a meeting, Charlie's on the intercom telling them what the assignment is, there's a couple of fights, and then a chase, and they catch the bad guy. Then they're back home wrapping it up."

The T. J. Hooker minisodes, the shrunk versions of especially formulaic cop show from the early 1980s, can be seen online in short bursts of action as William Shatner interrogates suspects, fires shots and chases bad guys; Shatner is just hilarious. 

According to the president of Sony Television, the main aim of the minisodes is to offer “campy and funny” stuff thru the Minisode Network. Sony Television may launch a separate Internet channel called the Minisode Network later.