Eisner Stakes His Claim on the Web

For 21 years Michael Eisner worked to raise the bar for family-branded entertainment as Chief Executive Officer of the Walt Disney Company.  These days, Eisner endeavors to set the standard for original web series via his new media studio, Vuguru.

Vuguru announced today that the company has secured an investment and distribution partnership with Canada's Rogers Media, which, via Rogers Broadcasting, operates 54 radio stations and nearly a dozen television outlets in our neighbor to the North.

According to the release, in addition to providing Rogers Media with the long-term, exclusive Canadian distribution rights to future Vuguru projects, financing from the agreement will help enable Eisner to pursue his goal of producing up to 30 series per year.

A study done by the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California estimates that production of a web series runs anywhere from $2,000 to $10,000 per minute, compared to the nearly $2.5 million it takes to produce an hour of scripted content for television. 

Clearly, webisodes are proportionally far less expensive.  However, it seems likely that in this medium, as across film and television platforms, heavy hitters like Eisner and Rogers Media will win out over smaller, more “grass-roots” competition with a greater ability to score broad distribution and sponsorship deals and produce more polished content. 

Vuguru appeared on the scene in 2006 and launched it’s first Emmy-nominated serial, Prom Queen, in 2007.  Verizon carried the series across all of its platforms, including mobile devices and Verizon’s FiOS TV.  Prom Queen’s spin-off series was also supported by Verizon, and, according to a Vuguru press release, added “multi-level promotion and distribution deals with Bebo, MySpace, YouTube, Veoh, Imeem, Revver, and Blinkx.”

…well, ok then.

I’d like to think that the relative ease of producing content for the internet still offers opportunity to aspiring content creators.  But, alas, it just might take heavy hitters, like Eisner, with the name recognition and financing to get original content noticed in a budding market where everyone from true video novices to major network studios like NBC (Quarterlife) and ABC (Motherhood) are churning out webisodes.