Coming to a screen near you: the five-minute 'minisode'

They've tried reruns. They've tried remakes and big-screen adaptations. Now the overlords of American entertainment have come up with a new idea for breathing new life into stale, old television shows from the 1970s.

They are re-editing them as five-minute "minisodes", poking fun at the tired, formulaic absurdity of the originals. In June, Sony will start pumping out reduced versions of shows such as Charlie's Angels and Starsky and Hutch and airing them on MySpace, the internet social networking site.

In many ways, the idea is similar to the witty, creative "mash- ups", or re-edits, of well-known footage shown many times on the internet, in which ordinary techno-geeks with digital editing equipment lampoon famous films or score political points. What makes this different is that it has been dreamt up by a major entertainment conglomerate.

Steve Mosko, the head of Sony's television division, said the conceit is based on the deeply predictable formula that so many old cop shows follow. "So in Char-lie's Angels," he told The New York Times, "they have a meeting, Charlie's on the intercom telling them what the assignment is, there's a couple of fights, then a chase, and they catch the bad guy. Then they're back home wrapping it up."

Mr Mosko called the abbreviated re-edits "campy and fun", but they are also a potential new revenue stream for a company with a large back catalogue of material. "We've been looking for a way to make money from our library," he said. "Something that could bring new life to shows that have been on the shelf for a while."

Mr Mosko said that he came up with the idea after he saw The Seven-Minute Sopranos, a condensation of the 77-episode Mafia saga, on YouTube in March.

Radical abbreviation is an old comic technique, the great performances of the Reduced Shakespeare Company - all of the Bard in 90 minutes - being one prominent recent example.

'The Lord of the Rings': an 11-hour film trilogy reduced

THE BRIEFING

Wizard Gandalf gives Frodo the One Ring and sends him on a quest to destroy it in the fires of far-off Mount Doom.

THE BAD GUYS

Dark lord Sauron - seen only as an eye - wants the power of the Ring, so he must manipulate creatures to seize it.

THE CHASE

Sauron's minions, including the Wraith Riders, pursue Frodo and his dwindling Fellowship of friends across Middle Earth. For ages.

THE BIG FIGHT

Frodo climbs the mountain and destroys the ring, and ally Aragon wins the (now mercifully brief) war against the armies of Sauron.

SMILES ALL ROUND

Aragon inherits the kingdom and marries the noble elf Arwen. Tired old Frodo is taken off to a heaven-like better place.

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