Disney Launches Web Content Studio - Stage 9 Digital Media
With a web site and press release that push hard to position the company as revolutionary, Disney today announced the launch of Stage 9 Digital Media. They claim to have 20 web series in various stages of development, ranging from comedy to science fiction.
Tech Crunch's Eric Schonfeld wasn't impressed by Stage 9's first series, SQUEEGEES: "Lame doesn’t begin to describe this three-and-half-minute comedy about the hijinks of a window-washing crew ... What ABC fails to understand is that when it comes to Web video, authenticity trumps production values."
NewTeeVees's Chris Albrecht characterizes SQUEEGEES as another example of big-media creating web shows that are merely "shorter versions of what already exists in old media." He calls the show "sit-comy" but funny, and he faults Disney for a cardinal internet sin: not allowing users to embed the show in their own sites.
The LA Times article about Stage 9 suggests $200,000 as a budget for some of the series, pretty high for internet original content. I've heard the science-fiction series they're doing - Trenches - is considerably higher than that.
Interesting.
Whats with these names anyway?
Stage6, Stage9, and also the company that does Sanctuary is called "Stage3 media".
Its like internet video/tv distribution have to be called "stage" something. Weird.
ps. Sanctuary rocks. Go watch. DRM free, money straight to creators. Exactly how tv should work.
Posted by: Darkflame | March 07, 2008 at 05:44 AM