Much is riding on its Internet push to a wide age group that includes MySpace-style offerings.
By Joseph Menn, Times Staff Writer
January 8, 2007
The stakes could scarcely be bigger for Walt Disney Co. as it unveils a revamped flagship website today.
Reversing the company's past Internet stumbles is a top priority for Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger, whose reputation as a new-media leader in an old-media business could be tarnished if the site fails to attract more viewers.
Disney.com is already among the most popular sites with children, so company executives have tried to convey modest goals. They say Disney simply wants the current 25 million monthly visitors to stay longer, watch more ads and deepen their connections to Mickey, Pooh and mermaid Ariel.
But investors will be looking for more dramatic results.
"We've seen a lot of announcements out of Disney with respect to the Net. Now the expectations are higher," UBS analyst Aryeh Bourkoff said. "This year, the focus has to be on execution."
Since assuming the top Disney job from Michael Eisner 15 months ago, Iger has won praise for dropping Disney's previous antagonism toward Web innovations and striking such pioneering deals as being the first one to sell prime-time television shows and movies over Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes store.
But for all of Iger's proclamations about finding new ways to reach consumers over the Internet, Disney's own website has changed little, and the zealous policing of its creations has limited the Web environments that children can create using its characters.
At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today, Iger will give a preview of the overhauled site that will be accessible to the public later this month.
"I believe we successfully strike the right balance between the huge strength of the existing business and the potential of new media," Steve Wadsworth, president of Walt Disney Internet Group, said in an interview.
More than any other big media company, family-oriented Disney must worry about navigating between the strict controls that appeal to parents and the increasing expectations of freedom held by their children.
Disney is aiming its site at preschoolers on their parents' laps to the 14- and 15-year-olds who populate MySpace, the enormously successful social-networking site News Corp. acquired in 2005.
The new Disney.com will present itself differently to various age groups, though all will get expanded video, games and other interaction. As on MySpace, visitors will be able to create their own websites, communicate with each other and mash together and share music and videos — as long as they're Disney music and videos.
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