NBC to air web drama Quarterlife

Bitsie Tulloch plays Dylan Krieger in Quarterlife

A drama that made its debut on social networking website MySpace is to be screened by US network NBC next year.

Quarterlife, created by the team behind 1990s hits Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life, appears weekly in eight-minute episodes on the website.

The 36 episodes will be combined into shows that can air on TV for an hour.

The deal comes nearly two weeks after TV and film writers walked off the job in a row over payments for material which is also used on the internet.

Material created independently for the internet is not subject to the strike, but NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman said it was not a motivation for him buying the show.

'Creative vision'

Quarterlife, a drama about a group of recent graduates in Chicago, started as a pilot for ABC in 2005, but the network declined to make a full series, so creators Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick took it to MySpace, where it launched this month.

Mr Silverman praised Herskovitz and Zwick for having the courage to launch their show only on the web.

"If there were more people who are willing to bet on their own creative vision and finance themselves, then the business model becomes something they define," he told Reuters.

The deal means NBC has the rights to air already-written shows on TV, the web and on DVD.

But if it wanted to order more programmes while the strike is on, it could be a problem for Herskovitz, who is a member of the Writers Guild of America.

"If we get a pickup for more episodes, we have every expectation we will be able to work out a deal so we could continue writing," he said.

Herskovitz added that user traffic to Quarterlife's own website had been "really fantastic", but did not give further details.