Steven Bochco: The latest wannabe online video mogul (LAT)

By Nancy Vialatte

"The Internet is at its best when it distracts its users," says Steven Bochco in today�s Los Angeles Times. "You're waiting at the bus stop, you're in between classes, you have 20 minutes � so you go online and you have some fun."

And, now, the creator of such seminal TV series as �L.A. Law� and �Hill Street Blues� is putting his money where his mouth is. Today will see the launch of "Cafe Confidential," an Internet series that packs a quick punch. The 44-clip collection, which will be housed on video site Metacafe, features people in their teens or 20s telling lighthearted, semi-confessional stories.

The legal fight Viacom Inc. launched against Google Inc.'s YouTube last week highlighted the fear and loathing the Internet has generated in some corners of Hollywood.

But Bochco, former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael Eisner and former MTV Networks President Herb Scannell represent a new wave of venturesome Hollywood players diving into the new medium. Eisner has invested in video-sharing site Veoh Networks Inc. and online-video studio Vuguru, and Scannell's Next New Networks is creating Web TV channels.

"If you spend your life chasing your consumers and filing lawsuits, that's a fool's errand," Bochco told the LAT. "At the end of the day, the consumer always wins. So, do you want to be right and spend five years and millions of dollars in legal fees to prove it? Or do you want to be successful?"

Bochco made the decision to leap to the Internet last fall as a means to creating entertainment outside the traditional Hollywood box. Metacafe is underwriting the project and splitting the advertising revenue with him.

The series of videos is culled from more than 100 interviews where people dish on things like weird family members, first sexual experiences, worst dates, crazy days at work or embarrassing moments.

Metacafe is betting that "Cafe Confidential" will spur amateur auteurs into submitting their own versions. "The idea is that this becomes an electronic online campfire around which we sit and tell stories," Bochco said. "I'm the camp counselor."