New Life for TV pilots

There has been a growing number of failed TV pilots finding a second life through viral campaigns on the interent. The most recent is 'Big Handsome Guy and his Little Friend', originally turned down by Fox the series has now been grabbed by rival NBC after it gained web popularity. This is quite a big thing because there are literally thousands of failed pilots for Tv shows sitting on production company shelves. The level of indicision for comissioning Editors is going to rise a lot, not only do you have to worry about picking the right shows, you have to worry about the ones you turn down making it to rival broadcasters in record time. There is nothing new in shows being picked up by other networks, even here in Australia Gold Loggie winning 'ROVE' began on Channel 9 and 'Neighbours' was orginally on Channel 7. Maybe the REALLY important change we will begin to see is television networks testing their shows on the internet through viral marketing and video on demand and through video download sites before they commission the full series. A big factor that needs to be asked though is an internet audience the same as a television audience? Certainly their are figures to show that online audiences are growing while television audiences are dropping but is there a direct corrolation between the two?