Lonelygirl Gets A New Sponsor: Fox's "Jumper" (NWS)

The producers of web phenom "lonelygirl15" have a sponsor for the third season of the show: News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox. Like the second season, where sponsor Neutrogena was woven into the plot, the third season will have a storyline that ties into the upcoming Fox release, "Jumper". The movie, out Feb. 14, is about teens who teleport.

The new lonelgirl season, which kicked off Friday, features a teleporting, video-blogging character who becomes entwined with the lonelygirl15 cast, a storyline that culminates with the release of the Fox film on Feb. 14. Videos of teleporting kid are posted at youtube.com/watchyourjack.

News Corp. is paying LG producers Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfriend to integrate the movie into the show, which means that NWS is now responsible for two different LG revenue streams: The company also has distribution/revenue share agreements with NWS' MySpace and Google's YouTube.

LG started on a shoe-string budget, and Beckett and Goodfriend said they're keeping it that way, despite the fact that they've now get revenue (they won't disclose how much): Each one-minute episode costs about $2,500 to $3,000 to produce, they say. "The aesthetic of the show is real people in their lives," Goodfriend sad. "We don't need huge locations; we don't need lighting, sound equipment or trucks."