The Future Of Indie TV Is Looking Bright Thanks To Netflix’s Latest Addition, ‘The Jamz’

There’s a good chance you haven’t seen The Jamz. This four-episode work comedy that takes place in the wild world of DJs and talk radio doesn’t have any big names attached to it nor did it find its start on any recognizable network. However, it’s one of the most revolutionary gems hidden on Netflix precisely for the same reasons why you’ve never seen it.

The Jamz is a 30-minute comedy that follows a dysfunctional Chicago radio station. The station and its many personalities are as wacky as you would expect, but they live in a state of relative harmony. At least they seem to until the host of the station’s most profitable show — the morning news show — announces his retirement. From there, it’s a dirty and devoted professional fight to the radio station top. Like most work comedies, it’s not The Jamz premise that sets it apart but its characters and quick fire jokes. In particular, the late night hosts, Fitzy and Jay-Jay (Chris Petlak and Jim Kozyra respectively) are the perfect representation of every annoying, hyper-bro local radio DJ you can imagine. Think of them as a toned down version of The Douche from Parks and Recreation meets the main gang from Workaholics. The series is fun, but it’s not mind-blowing comedy. However, the same can’t be said for the way this show came to exist.

Typically, creators have to jump through a lot of hoops before their series sees the light of day, and most of those hoops involve convincing someone else that yes, your show should in fact exist. The creative team behind The Jamz, Petlak and Kozyra, bypassed all of those hurdles by raising the money for webisodes of the series and posting it on Vimeo. That’s when the series … failed. However, when the pair submitted their scrappy series to the New York Television Festival, it started turning heads. After that, an independent entertainment company gave the team enough money to produce four 30-minute episodes — without a network lined up. Today, The Jamz still doesn’t have a network, but it does have a Netflix distribution deal under its belt. You can now stream those four episodes, and Netflix was so excited about its acquisition, the series was included in at least some of the streaming service’s new arrival notifications.

The Jamz is far from the first series to find a home through untraditional means. HBO’s talent-packed show Animals started at the same festival. Sure, that gem had the added help of coming from the beloved Mark and Jay Duplass, but its story is very similar. It was a show that was optimistically made and shopped around television festivals without a buyer in sight. It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and South Park became the stuff of comedy legends partially by following the same idea. Always Sunny’s first episode was made without a network attachment (watch it here), and South Park came about from a viral Christmas video. However, the big difference between all of these comedies and The Jamz is that all of these series found a network home before making their way to the public. The Jamz hasn’t.

This particular acquisition proves that there is a market for shows to completely jump over traditional series creation methods, a tradition that is continually being challenged by Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and even Vimeo and YouTube Red. Now more than ever, there are more avenues for creators to create. If watching the evolution of television creation in real time isn’t a good enough reason to check out The Jamz, then I don’t know what is.

[Stream The Jamz on Netflix]