Do you want more evidence that the viral nature of user generated media (UGM) is becoming a more serious business? How about this: Steven Bochco is getting into the viral video business.

Variety reported that he signed "a strategic alliance with Metacafe, a YouTube-like video-sharing site that tries to cut through the user-generated clutter by paying producers based on the popularity of their content. Under the deal, Bochco will create a variety of content for Metacafe, including a Bochco-branded online channel."

Apparently, the first project has already started production and is due out in early 2007. We don't know much about it but it's rumored to be unscripted and encourage audience participation.

Bochco, whose credits range from "L.A. Law" and "NYPD Blue" to last season's "Commander in Chief," becomes one of the first "old-guard" scripted TV producers to enter into a production alliance with a video-sharing service. A number of reality TV producers, including Mark Burnett and Ben Silverman, are already well-established on the Net.

Bochco said the key to success on the Net will be creating content that takes into account the unique nature of the medium.

In the past, "People were trying to fit a square peg into a round hole," he said. "They were trying to impose our old entertainment model on their new platform. You're looking at a vastly different medium."

I say amen to that. I've long believed that traditional television will continue to cater to and prosper with its long-running business model (connecting advertisers to mass audiences) and that online video will become something different (more like a 'long tail' model).

Bochco remains based at Touchstone for TV production.