Cutting the Cord: 'Live At 9:30' plays online

New music variety show Live At 9:30 hits public TV later this week, but it already has a streaming strategy ready for its all-important online second act.

Streaming viewership is perhaps more important than traditional broadcast for the fledgling series, which is based at the well-known Washington 9:30 Club music venue. That's because those most likely to become repeat viewers of the show are among the 18-34 Millennial age group that relies on streaming video more than any other adults.

Millennials stream 14.8 hours of video weekly on average, accounting for more than half their time spent watching TV, finds a recent online survey of 1,900 U.S. adult broadband users done by The Diffusion Group for content monetization firm CSI International. The average viewer in the survey devoted 43% of TV time to streaming video.

Each hour-long episode of Live At 9:30 has four or five musical acts — bands Garbage, El Vy, MisterWives, Ibeyi and Yonder Mountain String Band appear in the first. "It is a unique challenge because our show is going to air on public television, which has an older demographic, but the club obviously has a younger demographic, including cord cutters," said executive producer Michael Holstein, who co-created the series with Seth Hurwitz, who co-owns the 9:30 Club, and Audrey Fix Schaefer, communications director for live event promotion firm I.M.P.

To reach the non-pay-TV audience, Holstein already has a dual-pronged video plan for Live At 9:30, which debuts Saturday on public TV stations across the U.S. (check local listings for broadcast). After that, on June 9, the first episode will land on the show's website, (LiveAt930.com). Subsequent episodes will be available on the website each month on the 9th, while older episodes will remain in rotation on the site.

The show creators hope to make the Live At 9:30 website a regular stop for fans with daily updates. "It’s not just a blog and still photos, although we will have those things, too," Holstein said. "There will be a lot of video. It might be a great performance, but we only have an hour for each show and we are filming about 60 bands. It’s just an embarrassment of riches of content."

Then in August, after the first six episodes have been broadcast on TV, they will be available for binge-watching on Amazon Prime Video. The other six episodes of the first season will land on Amazon in early December.

Cutting the Cord: A bright streaming future

An entertainment lawyer, TV producer and longtime frequenter of the 9:30 Club, Holstein came up with the idea for a variety show that flips the Saturday Night Live model. "Where they break up the comedy with music, we will flip it and break up the music with other things," he said.

Live At 9:30 is a fast-moving hour. Each act usually gets three songs; interviews, comedians, video shorts and wacky animations are interspersed between performances. The well-polished video production gives viewers all-access angles from the front row, above the stage and behind drummers and keyboardists. Holstein deploys as many as 16 cameras for filming, including several handhelds and up to six GoPros.

Also deployed: a 4K camera and a cable cam that flies from the upstairs rear of the club toward the stage. "It gives you a bird’s-eye perspective of things," said Holstein, who showed me the camera when I visited during the recording of a Drive-By Truckers concert in March.

In recent months, a stream of bands playing the 9:30 Club including the Drive-By Truckers, The Arcs and The Jesus and Mary Chain has let Holstein and crew film their gigs for use in the series.

"Playing the 9:30 Club is on every artist's bucket list," said Drew Holcomb of Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors. "It's a magical room with a long history of incredible artists and great shows. We were thrilled to play there this year, and even more thrilled that the show was recorded and filmed for posterity for the Live At 9:30 show."

"Cutting the Cord" is a regular column covering Net TV and ways to get it. If you have suggestions or questions, contact Mike Snider via e-mail at msnider@usatoday.com. And follow him on Twitter: @MikeSnider