It didn’t take Kathleen Grace long to realize that Michael Eisner had become a New Media mogul, BusinessWeek.com reports.
In Los Angeles with her business partner last spring to pitch an online series to the former Walt Disney Co. (DIS ) chief executive, Grace was surprised when Eisner whipped out a notebook filled with suggestions to improve an existing sitcom that the duo were already showing online.
Within weeks, Grace’s Dinosaur Diorama Productions Inc. had signed with Eisner’s five-month old Vuguru studio to produce The All-For-Nots, an online series centered around musicians on tour. “It’s kind of like The Monkees,” says Grace. “I think that struck a chord with Michael.”
Can a 65-year-old former Old Media lion recast himself as an online power player? He can if he’s got 40 years of entertainment contacts, collected more than $1 billion from cashed-in Disney options, and, most important, still has the hunger to prove wrong the critics who hounded him out of his job in 2005.
It didn’t take long for Eisner to back a bona fide Internet hit: the teen angst drama Prom Queen. Premiering last April, the Web series is made up of 80, two-minute-long episodes that Eisner loaded with advertisements and product placements.
