Michael Eisner, former Walt Disney Co. (DIS) CEO has made a deal to send his web hit "Prom Queen" to France and Japan, where they will turn the short-form videos into television programming and other content forms.
The Tornante Company, Eisner's investment firm, will produce and distribute the content through its Vuguru arm. They have made deals with Japan's Rights Entertainment and Frances' Cyber Groupe to that end.
They are in negotiations with Russia and other European countries to offer "Prom Queen" to those markets as well.
"If you do something well, there's appeal for it around the world," Eisner said. "All the things that used to go downstream when the Internet was simply an ancillary market, now you're seeing the Internet becoming the primary market."
It looks like each country will develop a customized version and revenue model targeted to their specific market.
Two of the challenges facing Vuguru, will be taking the video content created for the computer and turning it into something that will play well on a big screen TV. The other is transferring an American event into something the that the teen population of another country will relate to.
That's a challenge all of us that target international customers will face; as far as making it relevant to the people we're marketing to.
"Prom Queen" has been viewed by almost 15 million people since it was released in April, and it's spinoff "Prom Queen: Summer Heat," which will be included in the deal also, has been viewed by 2 million people so far.
"Prom Queen" will be ready to be released overseas sometime in 2008.
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