Santa Monica firm is planning to offer shows aimed at niche audiences on the Net.

Imagine a television network that features shows about punk rock, aggressive skateboarding and the neighborhoods of East Los Angeles as well an Asian-style Hardy Boys series. Such a lineup may be a hard sell for cable TV, let alone a broadcast network. But a Santa Monica company is planning to take on television by offering those shows--plus 26 more--on the Internet starting in May. By focusing on a large number of niche audiences, Digital Entertainment Network Inc. hopes to attract enough viewers to lure advertisers away from television. DEN has already signed ad deals with Ford Motor Co. and four other Fortune 100 firms worth a total of $12.5 million. Still, creating profitable entertainment for the Web is a Holy Grail that has so far eluded scores of start-ups. DEN relies on many of the same ingredients, including a two-inch-by-two-inch square of streaming video that is a poor substitute for a TV screen. "The Web as entertainment is still a very difficult model, even three, four or five years into the commercial Internet," said P. Keane, an online analyst with Jupiter Communications in New York. DEN co-founders M. Collins-Rector and C. Shackley believe otherwise. The partners, who previously founded Internet service provider Concentric Network Corp., are aiming the new cyber-network at teenagers and twentysomethings who are equally at ease with a remote control and computer mouse.