A Little Of The Old In And Out



(image via cnn)

In: Bob Iger. Iger's reign at the Mouse House is smoothly differentiating itself from that of the more tyrannical -- by comparison -- reign of Eisner. While the choleric Eisner seemed unfriendly to content creators, Iger appears to be just the opposite, romancing (and buying) the creative firmament. From The Wrap:

"The Walt Disney Company has agreed to buy independent entertainment company Marvel in a deal worth $4 billion, the two companies announced on Monday morning.

The acquisition ends a long dry spell on media deals in an economy that has seen shareholder value erode dramatically over the past year, and that has caused conventional wisdom to lean away from the bigger-is-better model.

"But Marvel has become a hot property as the comic-based company - which was in bankruptcy a decade ago -- has seen one hit after another. Those have included the relaunching of the Spider-Man series and the phenomenal success of Iron Man, with the next in that series -- Iron Man 2 --expected out next May.

"The deal gives Disney access to popular characters and potentially more movies to carry through its distribution system, which has dialled back on its number of annual releases.

"And it follows other major deals by Disney under the leadership of CEO Robert Iger, including the acquisition of Pixar in 2006 for $7 billion, and the alliance with DreamWorks this year, in which the studio beat out the favored Universal.

"'Creativity, technology, global growth will all be better served by bringing Marvel into the fold,' said Disney CFO Tom Staggs on an analyst call on Monday morning."

Iger quickly shored up his relationship with Steve Jobs -- which grew cantankerous under Eisner -- and now Marvel, which, all things told seems, at this early date, a brilliant content move.



Out: The Daytime Emmys. Testament, perhaps, to the fact that soap operas -- and daytime tv in general -- are less and less relevant in a 500-1,000 channel universe, the Daytime Emmy's tanked. From TVBytheNumbers:

"CW’s 36th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards delivered a 0.6 rating/2 share / 2.68 million viewers, down -50% from ABC’s coverage of the event last year (1.2 rating/4 share on Friday 6/20/08). The Red Carpet pre-show special at 7pm drew an (0.3 adults 18-49 rating/1 share / 1.21 million)."

Ouch. Worse: Preseason football and a "60 Minutes" repeat kicked its tush.