Excited about Yahoo saving Community from extinction, Harmon said “I am very pleased that Community will be returning for its predestined sixth season on Yahoo. I look forward to bringing our beloved NBC sitcom to a larger audience by moving it online. I vow to dominate our new competition.” Of course, the shift to the online space should open up more freedom for the show’s writers, a significant change from the limitations of producing a show for a broadcast network. It was also perfect timing that Yahoo picked up the show today as contracts for all the actors were set to expire at the end of June.
In addition to the new season of Community, Yahoo is also producing a couple new shows set to start during 2015. The first is a futuristic comedy called Other Space that’s about a group of space travelers and the second is a show called Sin City Saints that details the travails of running a a new professional basketball expansion team out of Las Vegas.
Of course, it’s not entirely clear how Yahoo plans to monetize original video content. Advertising during each episode is a likely possibility, but the Web company could potentially adopt a pay-per-play model on an episode basis or for an entire season of content. Assuming Yahoo works to make more content available, the company could eventually turn to a subscription model similar to Netflix or Hulu Plus. However, that eventuality will likely require a heavy investment in content to fill out Yahoo’s video library.
