UTA plucking talent from online obscurity (NYT)

By Nancy Vialatte

UTA has opened an online division to scout for new talent creating Internet content with a view to channeling them towards web-based advertising and entertainment as well as traditional media, says the New York Times.

The NYT calls the move a modest bet and a �return by Hollywood�s core talent representatives to the sort of new-media business they tested, without great success, at the peak of the dot-com boom.�

The difference, however, is that UTA�s goal is to help major web portals find the creatives they need for content. That, along with plucking the next generation of TV and film talent from the rather anonymous world of YouTube.

While other agencies are certainly in on the business, the NYT points to UTA as �taking the risk that relatively small deals today will quickly grow in size and scope, and it is banking on the notion that artists surfacing on the Internet may often be quite content to have successful careers that do not make the leap to TV or film.�

�It starts with just helping identify people on both sides of the aisle,� said Brent Weinstein, head of the new division, UTA Online. �The barrier to entry is so low, everybody is now a potential artist. So there�s this great unwashed of talent out there, 99.999 percent of which is probably not good enough to have a traditional film and television career. But on the Internet, a lot of different types of things go. And yet for buyers, this is a wall of people, so how does a brand know which one of them can help it execute?�