Landing a TV drama or comedy on a major network is beyond the reach of most indie producers.

Traditional TV, where you need tens of millions of dollars to turn an idea into a pilot and then a first season, is a rich man’s game.

But now there’s an alternative, and it comes from Hamilton-raised Aubrey Levy, the brain behind Mobcaster.com, an online TV channel with its own crowd-sourcing platform to identify, fund and produce new TV series.

Levy tells Playback Daily that Mobcaster sprang from the idea that there’s far more video content created each year than can be screened and sorted by top network TV honchos that greenlight new pilots and series.

The result is that video content spills out onto the internet, mobile phones and tablets.

“There’s no need for a choked off pipeline to produce TV programming. No one but the audience should decide,” Levy says.

That’s where Mobcaster comes in, helping TV creators and producers find an audience, fund their shows and air their series online to build momentum towards a possible traditional TV air date.

It’s early days. The Los Angeles-based website launched in November, and so far has three projects in development.

An example is Michigan-based filmmaker Andrea Clair Maio reaching her goal of raising $15,000 in crowd-sourced financing from 192 “executives,” or angel investors, who viewed her pitch on Mobcaster and decided to put coin behind the episodic series Back To Your Senses, about people who take risks to do what brings them pleasure.

The project is now funded for a pilot which, when completed, will return to Mobcaster for another crowd-sourcing financing attempt to produce five more episodes.

“It’s the same process. The pilot is a promotional video for the rest of the season, we set some rewards and try to help you raise funds for that,” Levy explains.

How does Mobcaster cash in on the new venture?

The online TV channel charges 5% of all funds raised, and only collects if a showrunner reaches their fund-raising goal.

And the content creator monetizes a show on Mobcaster by receiving a split on the advertising wrapped around the series that streams on Mobcaster TV.

Should a series groomed by Mobcaster be acquired by a network or another distribution platform, the online TV channel will reach in to grab certain rights, including a 15% participation fee.

Levy adds the online channel for indie TV gets investors and audiences involved in content development way before the traditional TV model, where there’s no involvement until a pilot airs and the audience votes with their clicker.

“Your engagement doesn’t begin until it (the pilot) ends up on your screen,” he says.

The promise of the internet, Levy argues, is that consumers get a far bigger say in what content they want to view, on what platform and when they want to do so.

“We’re filling in the last piece,” he says of getting indie TV to an emerging digital world from the ground up.