How to pronounce “espen” in English

Jane Espenson: I'm Jane Espenson, I'm one of the creators of "Husbands" which is, we're gonna show you a couple episodes of it and talk about it and how it is inventing television.

Jane Espenson: I have, I come at this from the TV side.

Jane Espenson: If you've watched, particularly if you've watched geeky, sci-fi TV you've definitely seen something I've written.

Jane Espenson: Absolutely. Brad Bell: It's the Indian Ocean and the Arctic Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

Jane Espenson: It's the Seven Seas.

Jane Espenson: Yeah, so, it started occurring to us, it didn't occur to us till we actually had "Husbands" out there, actually, that that we were in, we were in the big ocean.

Jane Espenson: Like it's just it's a big world.

Jane Espenson: I think.

Jane Espenson: We'd have to get out a tape measure.

Jane Espenson: But you were talking about the history, you looked up the history of the word television, the original promise of TV.

Jane Espenson: Vision. Brad Bell: You know?

Jane Espenson: Honolulu. Brad Bell: Okay, Honolulu, too.

Jane Espenson: Right. Jane Espenson: So the word television sounds like it was meant to apply to the worldwide web and when you actually go back and look

Jane Espenson: It's the original promise of television.

Jane Espenson: Yeah. So television, we, we, television is being invented now.

Jane Espenson: We worked very hard to try to make it match the quality of broadcast television in terms of production quality and, sort of, the process that went in to

Jane Espenson: Yeah and we started, you might ask why doesn't network TV make content that addresses issues like this or has, or if you enjoyed it why doesn't network TV make

Jane Espenson: And yet testing is still used so they're clearly not getting the information that they need to know about what to predict

Jane Espenson: Yeah, it's propagated this assumption.

Jane Espenson: We'll get the single women in their 60's; they're not changing their brands and stuff so?

Jane Espenson: People making comments.

Jane Espenson: Yeah, so I think networks are now sometimes saying, "We can't afford to be niche anymore because we'll only get this one audience" when it's not the case.

Jane Espenson: And, of course, this has become self fulfilling.

Jane Espenson: and just see how many people they can get not are those people who are, as we discovered when we put this up on Kickstarter, yeah, only a thousand donors.

Jane Espenson: Yeah if you were a TV show- Brad Bell: It's pretty good for 22 minutes but it's not an incredible number.

Jane Espenson: Yeah, so that's why TV doesn't make content like this, is that they're not, they're making these assumptions like, "Oh it'll get a small number of people and it'll

Jane Espenson: Well kids are sitting there playing video games till they fall over.

Jane Espenson: We should be, how can we achieve?

Jane Espenson: And TV has, because TV is, network TV, traditional TV has gotten so chopped up it isn't really about building community and that 70 percent of the way people are

Jane Espenson: Usually it's cause an initial like this, the things that you see Cheeks and Brady using design a lifestyle, a place, a hip place, hip people and sort of an aspirational

Jane Espenson: Right she had to figure it out.

Jane Espenson: A lot of people are gonna be getting the Brady.

Jane Espenson: So that's our vision of the future.

Jane Espenson: Oh, thank you.

Jane Espenson: Oh, season one?

Jane Espenson: Yeah. female #1: So is this just because you're trying it out?

Jane Espenson: Yeah, we think people are feeling what you're feeling.

Jane Espenson: Which is amazing for people to sit for 10 minutes, like, it really has changed.

Jane Espenson: It's a TV show.

Jane Espenson: The third executive producer on the show is Jeff Greenstein who directed the episodes and he's fantastic and he always says, he writes for "Desperate Housewives"

Jane Espenson: Yeah we raised, we asked for $50,000 they gave us $60,000.

Jane Espenson: I'm sure that's right.

Jane Espenson: Yeah it's when we, like the $50 incentive for the Kick starter was the DVD and you start going, "We're charging $50 for a DVD, oh my God!"

Jane Espenson: So between every week, every Wednesday they'll be a new episode or a new behind the scenes which shows you the making of the previous episode.

Jane Espenson: Nathan Fillion in season 1 and season 2, yeah, I don't know if you all recognize Josh Whedon and Mekhi Phifer and Clare Grant were all in this, and John

Jane Espenson: Web therapy, Children's Hospital, there's been a couple shows like that.

Jane Espenson: Exactly. male #1: Although I still have the question, do you think that networks will continue to reach down and pull in, pull in content-

Jane Espenson: Yeah I think they will.

Jane Espenson: Well no, you're right.