Written by Liz Gannes
Posted Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 3:00 AM PT

 

Eisner: The Web Doesn’t Change Content

Michael Eisner has demonstrated more than the idle curiosity or knee-jerk distrust in online video one might expect from a man with a long career of high-profile executive roles at ABC, Paramount Pictures, and Disney. Through his Tornante Company funding video aggregation startup Veoh and forming web video studio Vuguru, Eisner has trail-blazed old media’s recent efforts to embrace the web.

Today’s news of a distribution deal with MySpace for Vuguru’s first show Prom Queen (supposed to debut next week), for example, seems downright nimble in light of hidebound parent companies negotiating massive distribution alliances that won’t begin to come to fruition till this summer.

Still, Eisner is firmly rooted in fairly conservative views about what technology is doing to change media, as he told NewTeeVee in a recent phone interview. Technology doesn’t change entertainment, he said, it just presents temporary uncertainty about business models and distribution platforms and intellectual property protection.

And Eisner hasn’t abandoned his brethren in the least, responding to what I thought was a tangentially related question to voice his support for Viacom in its litigation against Google.

A belief in the continuum between amateur and professional, however, seemed to cut through Eisner’s allegiances; paying users who generate content, he advocated, is a necessary part of encouraging quality entertainment.

Excerpts follow:

NewTeeVee: How do you distinguish what you are doing with Vuguru from user-generated content, or do you at all?

Michael Eisner: If I was doing it in 1964 it would be user-generated content, but I have 40 years of semi-professional work in this field. So now we just put a new noun against me, which is professional, rather than user. I mean, there’s no difference except I’m taking my training as an English and theater major onto the internet.

NewTeeVee: What do you think people like you who are familiar with – and I don’t know if it’s a disparaging term for you – old media can offer this new media world?

Eisner: Well, if old media includes Greek mythology and Shakespeare and Eugene O’Neill and Happy Days, I’m thrilled to be coming out of old media, because old media means you understand motivation, and character, and where the denouement goes, and how to develop interests between characters, and make people laugh, and cry – and new media means technological advancement and expertise in distribution and exhibition, great. So far it hasn’t meant original produced professional high-grade quality entertainment.

NewTeeVee: What specifically attracts you about web content?

Eisner: I don’t look at it as web content. It is being distributed in a different mode. Hopefully [people] will forget whether it’s sitting on their lap or on a screen or on a desk, they’ll just be engaged in what the characters are saying. I don’t care about the technology, except that it opens up eyes to content.

NewTeeVee: What do you think would be the best strategy for video aggregation sites in light of everything that’s going on with YouTube?

Eisner: Even though I’m an investor in Veoh, I think the Viacom lawsuit is very promising.

NewTeeVee: You do?

Eisner: I do. I think that respect for people’s intellectual products is important. Starting with – and I don’t mean to be pretentious here, but – starting with Mr. Lincoln [the only U.S. president to hold a patent] on the importance of patents and trademarks and copyrights, it’s the basis of why American intellectual product leads the world, and it sets the standard that people can earn a living from things that come out of their mind. And I think that momentary technological advances should not undermine that concept.

If you can’t pay young user-generators down the line to do it professionally, they won’t be motivated to go into that business. And if [user-generators] don’t go into that business, our edge in Hollywood and New York and everywhere else in the world creating content will dissipate. So this is a real professional point of video. So I don’t see Viacom as a heavy, I don’t see Google as a heavy either, it’s just the next evolution of the technology.

There’s no heavy here, there’s no evil here. It’s just realizing that we’re now ready for the professional world to come in.

 

Sphere
Topic: Online Video
« Previous Post Next Post »

Comments & Trackbacks

  1. Hmmm. So very very convincing, he is - using words like “denouement” and somehow aligning himself with Eugene O’Neil and Abraham Lincoln. But I’m afraid its going to take a lot more than that to get people to overlook the fact that he ruined Tomorrowland, gave the green-light to things like ‘Emperor’s New Groove ‘ and tried to screw Pixar. Leave it to the evil old-media heavy to tell everyone that there’s no such thing as an evil old-media heavy… The guy’s nothing but a vuguru.

    jWorth on March 29th, 2007 at 9:37 am - Permalink

  2. Great interview, but one issue here: sitting at a desk, a screen, or even a cell phone is one thing…but there are times when, in the case of your wanting to watch something like The Discovery Channel in HD, this wont apply or hardly work.

    Alan Weinkrantz on March 29th, 2007 at 1:43 pm - Permalink

  3. [...] interview with Michael Eisner just went live this afternoon, and already it’s sparked some disgruntled grumbling (see the [...]

    Vidiocy » Michael Eisner compares himself to Lincoln, doesn’t care about technology on March 29th, 2007 at 3:09 pm - Permalink

  4. [...] I advise my readers to go check out a great interview at NewTeeVee with Michael Eisner. [...]

    The Media Age » The Web is Merely a New Means of Distribution? on March 29th, 2007 at 3:10 pm - Permalink

  5. [...] In an interview with NewTeeVee, ex-Disney Chief Michael Eisner (the guy behind Prom Queen, through his startup Vuguru) talks a lot about protection of intellectual property (”I think the Viacom lawsuit [against Google/YouTube] is very promising”) and how people must get paid for their work. [...]

    Shakespeare, Happy Days and Prom Queen on March 29th, 2007 at 3:22 pm - Permalink

  6. [...] In an interview with NewTeeVee, ex-Disney Chief Michael Eisner (the guy behind Prom Queen, through his startup Vuguru) talks a lot about protection of intellectual property (”I think the Viacom lawsuit [against Google/YouTube] is very promising”) and how people must get paid for their work. [...]

    Ajax Girl on March 29th, 2007 at 5:02 pm - Permalink

  7. [...] In an interview with NewTeeVee, ex-Disney Chief Michael Eisner (the guy behind Prom Queen, through his startup Vuguru) talks a lot about protection of intellectual property (”I think the Viacom lawsuit [against Google/YouTube] is very promising”) and how people must get paid for their work. [...]

    Multimedias.mobi » Shakespeare, Happy Days and Prom Queen on March 29th, 2007 at 6:08 pm - Permalink

  8. [...] この「Prom Queen」にはDisney元CEOのMichael Eisnerが自分のスタートアップ企業Vuguruを通して制作費を提供している。そのEisnerがNewTeeVeeのインタビューで知的所有権保護について大いに熱弁を振るっている。「Viacomの[対Google/YouTube]訴訟は勝算が高いと思う」とし、みんな自分の作品にはちゃんと報酬を払ってもらうべきだ、と。 [...]

    TechCrunch Japanese アーカイブ » ネットの大型連続ドラマ「Prom Queen」が来週放映開始 on March 29th, 2007 at 6:44 pm - Permalink

  9. [...] In an interview with NewTeeVee, ex-Disney Chief Michael Eisner (the guy behind Prom Queen, through his startup Vuguru) talks a lot about protection of intellectual property (”I think the Viacom lawsuit [against Google/YouTube] is very promising”) and how people must get paid for their work. [...]

    ::lemonup:: » Shakespeare, Happy Days and Prom Queen on March 30th, 2007 at 5:08 am - Permalink

  10. [...] (and current investor in YouTube clone Veoh and soon-to-be online media site Vuguru) talks about his views on online video and Viacom’s YouTube lawsuit. When asked what values old-media could bring to the Internet, he gave this lofty response: Well, [...]

    FanTent » Eisner on Viacom and YouTube on March 30th, 2007 at 6:51 am - Permalink

  11. [...] Arrington pans Michael Eisner’s Prom Queen project. Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee gets Eisner’s own thoughts on [...]

    Benjamin Kuo’s Blog » Blog Archive » Interview with Mark Stevens, Sequoia and other links on March 30th, 2007 at 6:54 am - Permalink

  12. Respect for IP is one thing. But disrespect for the intentions of the Founding Fathers intentions by extending IP for 50-70 years is IP squatting, even if it was your own IP is another thing. The IP should be turned over to the commons.

    Nick Dynice on March 30th, 2007 at 11:45 am - Permalink

  13. My response to Michael Eisner and Barry Diller’s content that content remains king:

    http://tinyurl.com/2wyzjs
    or
    http://lucidmedia.cirne.com/index.php/2007/04/01/justintv-p0wns-eisner/

    – Enric

    Enric on March 31st, 2007 at 1:46 pm - Permalink

  14. [...] Eisner: The web doesn’t change content Technology doesn’t change entertainment, he said, it just presents temporary uncertainty about business models and distribution platforms and intellectual property protection. [...]

    Media Cool Hunting » Blog Archive » Links for last week on April 3rd, 2007 at 3:19 am - Permalink

  15. [...] liked this quote from this NewTeeVee interview with Michael Eisner: Technology doesn’t change entertainment, he said, it just presents temporary uncertainty about [...]

    Ben Brown Says » Blog Archive » NewTeeVee » Eisner: The Web Doesn’t Change Content on April 3rd, 2007 at 12:31 pm - Permalink

  16. [...] Michael Eisner at NewTeevee talking about how the web doesn’t change content [...]

    iain tait | crackunit.com » Blog Archive » Online Drama - Prom Queen on April 10th, 2007 at 8:57 am - Permalink

  17. [...] had gotten something like 2 million views in total over its own 80 episodes run, so it seems the Michael Eisner hype and distribution power is working. Any of the guilty 200,000 viewers per day want to share here why [...]

    NewTeeVee » 2007 » May » 02 on May 2nd, 2007 at 4:06 pm - Permalink

  18. [...] and had recently launced Mark Burnett’s new political reality show, INDEPENDENT and is also promoting Michael Eisner’s Prom Queen. Now that said - how many of you actually watch MySpace [...]

    NewTeeVee » MySpace does premium video on May 15th, 2007 at 7:29 am - Permalink

  19. [...] addictive high school drama, which has been closely watched in part because of its ties to Michael Eisner, had previously said it was seeing about 200,000 views per day across the ten or so sites it is [...]

    NewTeeVee Prom Queen Finale: Suspense, Another Season, and a Few Pineapples « on June 19th, 2007 at 5:00 am - Permalink

  20. [...] content production. At its core, the media business revolves around storytelling. As Michael Eisner stated in an interview with NewTeeVee: “Old media means you understand motivation, and character, and where the [...]

    The Future of Media is Integrated : The Drama 2.0 Show on July 28th, 2007 at 1:21 pm - Permalink

  21. [...] way or another.It’ll be interesting to see how it does…Some other links on the story:Michael Eisner at NewTeevee talking about how the web doesn’t change contentAfter an initially scathing write-up of Prom Queen the Tech Crunch guys appear to be really rather [...]

    Online Drama - Prom Queen - Advertising 2.0 on March 31st, 2008 at 4:22 am - Permalink

Leave a reply








Safari hates me

If your comment doesn't show up immediately, it may have gotten caught in our trusty (but occasionally overly ambitious) spam filter. Please drop us a note and we'll retrieve it.