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April 3, 2007

Two Episodes Into Prom Queen And I’m Completely Hooked

Michael Arrington

39 comments »

Two days and two episodes into the new 80-segment, Internet-only show Prom Queen and I’m completely hooked.

Ok, not really. High school dramas aren’t really my thing, and I’m betting I spend a lot more time watching Justin.tv than Prom Queen. But the show does have merit (the story moves along briskly). MySpacers may be drawn to it, and it is as good as much of the user generated content out there. Michael Eisner’s Vuguru may have a mini hit on its hands. Episode 1 is embedded above. Episode 2 and future episodes are here.

Advertising intrusion was not as bad as I had feared after reading Eisner’s interview last week. There was a three second pre-roll ad for the upcoming Hairspray movie, a short ad for Verizon Vcast and then a fifteen second post-roll ad for Hairspray again. There were no obvious product placements that I saw in the first two episodes, and the last two ad units were easily skipped since the episode was over. Three total seconds of forced pre-roll ad watching for 1:40 worth of actual content is a lot better than normal TV.

With a budget of $100,000, the show could be very profitable.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007 at 6:40 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Zoli's Blog

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:45 pm

  2. ONLINE REVIEW | JOHNNY360.COM » Blog Archive » Prom Queen by MySpace

    April 4th, 2007 at 6:30 pm

  3. 16/06/07 - Case studies « Television and Film in an Online Environment

    September 18th, 2007 at 3:17 pm

Comments

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  1. Josh

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:08 pm

    I am hooked!

    Hot chick in underwear=male viewers

  2. David

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    From the still picture at the beginning it would appear that I would enjoy this… after watching - not so much.

  3. Pat

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:27 pm

    All I can think of every time i see this is an awful hardcore band from Australia called “I Killed The Prom Queen”… We don’t even say “prom” here and they still called themselves that…

  4. Kewtr

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:29 pm

    Yeah maybe 20 frames in I was in. If that’s what I can expect in terms of wardrobe, yes I’ll watch.

  5. Rishi

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:37 pm

    The advantage of being web based is that there are no FCC regulations to worry about.
    So they will be able to take ” sex sells” to a much higher level than there TV counterparts , if there advertisers allow them.
    This all means more male viewers and less marketing.

  6. Zoli Erdos

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:44 pm

    Haha, sorry, I just couldn’t resist :-)

  7. Drama 2.0

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:46 pm

    Michael: I’m pleasantly surprised to see you change your stance after having called DOA previously. Maybe old media isn’t as clueless as you, and others, think it is.

  8. Jay (living in First Life)

    April 3rd, 2007 at 7:57 pm

    Yes, this is a lot more mainstream and interesting than Justin.tv. Girls will watch this too. There is a plot and it’s focused on a topic relevant to many Myspacers (even the pedophiles).

    The real question is whether this is a viable business model. Eisner & Co. will get this kind of publicity just once. Let’s do some math - seems like that’s something most Web 2.0 fanatics don’t like but here goes:

    Assumptions:
    1. Cost to produce one show: $100,000 (this will go up as the people involved realize their value and it reaches closer to market value)
    2. Likelihood of one individual show becoming a hit: 25% (this is high if you compare pilots vs. successful shows, but let’s be generous)
    3. Episodes per show: 80
    4. Ads per episode: 1
    5. CPM of Single Episode Ad: $5 (3 seconds is very short, $5/CPM is generous)
    6. % of viewers who see all 80 episodes: 100% (not true, but let’s again be kind)

    Okay so value of one viewer = episodes/1000*CPM = 80/1000*5 = $0.40

    Let’s assume a hit show gets 1,000,000 viewers and a non-hit show gets 100,000 viewers.

    Hit show revenues: $400,000
    Non hit show revenues: $40,000
    10 Show Portfolio (10% hits, 90% non-hits): $760,000

    Expected Value of a Show: $76,000
    Gross Margin Per Show: - $24,000

    (read next part of post for the rest of it)

  9. Jeff O'Hara

    April 3rd, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    This could be a tipping point for “old media” to take “new media” seriously. I’ll be watching this closely.

    -Jeff O’Hara
    http://blog.zemote.com

  10. LonelyBloggers

    April 3rd, 2007 at 8:10 pm

    They mention a $100,000 production budget, but what’s the Prom Queen marketing budget to be featured on MySpace etc… Distribution ends up being more important than the videos themselves.

  11. Justin

    April 3rd, 2007 at 8:17 pm

    that video encoding (im guessing flash vp6) is horrible decoding on a 1 ghz p3 with a gigabyte of ram.

  12. Nick

    April 3rd, 2007 at 8:19 pm

    The actors look a bit older than the high school crowd…

  13. thejim

    April 3rd, 2007 at 8:24 pm

    High on production values, low on actual content. I suggest you guys look at http://www.somethingtobedesired.com for a good show in a similar format.

  14. Michael Arrington

    April 3rd, 2007 at 8:29 pm

    Yeah, thanks Zoli.

  15. thesubjective

    April 3rd, 2007 at 8:59 pm

    Re: Jay (#8)
    I think a million views for the hit shows is a way low estimate.

    The band episode ALA Flaming Lips at the Peach Pit should double that and given that they are embedable…set to auto-play…no sweat. All those dudes leaving the sex scene episode as a comment to their buddies, all the loners incorporating the killing of the Prom Queen dream sequence episode on their pages as “warning”, the drug use episode the stoners will eat up etc. All = tons of auto-play impressions.

    Best part, “Hairspray” up-front sponsorship was most likely $25k easy so a good start.

    Hopefully it’ s not all shot and can be edited based on consumption patterns.

  16. Drama 2.0

    April 3rd, 2007 at 9:01 pm

    Jay: agree that far too many Web 2.0 fanatics don’t pay any attention to the numbers. It’s difficult to say how the ads/sponsorships for this are being sold for Prom Queen, but I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the amount already committed from sponsorships exceeded $100,000. I doubt a straight CPM model is being used. As we saw with NewCo., major brands find it very easy to team up with big media on new initiatives, even before proven, especially while these initiatives are still in the “novelty” or “buzz” phase. It would be very easy for a few brand sponsors to drop $100,000 each on something like this without raising any concerns over viewership numbers. If these things fail to draw any audience, that will of course change, but for now I would be surprised if there’s a real chance that this will lose money.

  17. Adam

    April 3rd, 2007 at 9:08 pm

    During the 2nd episode I realized I went to college with the “Curtis” kid. Congrats Mills.

  18. Phil Butler

    April 3rd, 2007 at 9:35 pm

    They certainly seem to have the formula, I gotta like it.

  19. Justin

    April 3rd, 2007 at 10:01 pm

    So will they be uploading them to google video, youtube, etc? I can’t think of a reason why they shouldn’t.

  20. Chris

    April 3rd, 2007 at 10:09 pm

    Drama 2.0: Absolutely man. You know those 30 second commercials you see on TV? A good one of those costs more than $100,000.

    And the sponsors, they really do just want the buzz that comes with being early out of the gate on something like this.

    That said, this worked out to $100,000 per episode, and there are 80 of them? So this is expensive to make - certainly less so than a big movie, but a lot more than a tv spot. But I still agree, a CPM model couldn’t be farther from the picture here - most people that get to make 8 million dollar decisions don’t do math by CPM. I’m sure that’ll be part of it eventually, but it isn’t now.

    Major brands want Michael Eisner to make their online commercials. They really want it badly.

    This’ll work out for Vuguru and their crazy web-style 2.0 name.

  21. Get a Life you 40 year old virgins

    April 3rd, 2007 at 10:49 pm

    What so big deal about that video?

    Never seen female before.?!?

  22. Get a Life you 40 year old virgins

    April 3rd, 2007 at 10:51 pm

    You know how I know you guys are gay?

    You getting hooked with video stream.

  23. Jay (living in First Life)

    April 3rd, 2007 at 11:33 pm

    @ 15, 16, and 20

    I need to learn that TechCrunch cuts off my long posts and won’t let me post two consecutive ones. I had a financial model to show how it could actually be quite profitable. Sorry I got lazy and didn’t post all of it.

    I think this has legs but my main concern is how one scales this up. The first show will get the most publicity and after that I would think the talented producers, animators, actors, etc. will get priced to regular market prices. That being said, it would be really cool if this was a way that new talent got discovered.

    The embedded advertising is a great idea because it let’s the advertising travel with the content. It’s short enough that it’s not intrusive and irritating. That being said, by embedding it, it makes it much harder to target and deliver high value to the advertiser. I guess mass-market ads are what Eisner is the king of and he’ll do the same here.

  24. Hyjak

    April 3rd, 2007 at 11:55 pm

    this is gonna get a lot of views because of the hype, when i watched it i keep thinkin it was like a bad CW show wanna be . The acting was ok the production value was there, but the actors all seemed to be in thier 30’s and the dialog was out of date. Just to be sure i had my 14 year old cousin watch it and she said it sucked (she’s a big degrassi fan) and the episodes were too short for her to find out if its worth watchin again. I give it the first 12 episodes before views drop.

  25. KNOCKS

    April 4th, 2007 at 2:37 am

    ummm hmmm, wats the big deal? huh

  26. pallet jack

    April 4th, 2007 at 7:12 am

    Yeah still DOA - becuase the first advertiser (I can’t remember them)

    - RB

  27. Derek Scruggs

    April 4th, 2007 at 7:24 am

    Who would’ve guessed that T&A works online? ;)

  28. Tail Slating

    April 4th, 2007 at 7:47 am

    As an indie filmmaker, I love the fact that PQ is reaching an audience, especially since I’m creating my own series for a summer launch. However, I’m not sure this “90 seconds” or less thing is the right way to approach an online series. I see the merits of being fast-moving and daily, but I think 3-5 minute episodes with some sort of interaction with viewers is the ideal way to go. For example, rather than go daily, have a new ep every three days but incorporate viewer comments/suggestions. Lonelygirl did this once in a while but then sort of stopped, probably due to the effort it requires. I know that film productions will have difficulty maintaining this level of effort, but it will probably engage audiences more in the long run. just my 2 cents.

  29. Web TV CEO

    April 4th, 2007 at 7:18 pm

    It is very interesting to see big media getting involved in this medium. While what we produce is more magazine editorial, we have thought about using our production infrastructure to create more of this type of content. Hopefully they did/do get a lot of revenue from this and more importantly the advertisers will see great results as that will help boost acceptance of this medium from people other than the very loyal viewers.

    I was a bit surprised at the poor distribution quality of the full-screen viewer. If a lot of people are going to watch this, we wouldn’t want people to get the impression that that’s the type of quality you get online.

  30. Chris Saad

    April 5th, 2007 at 12:16 am

    It’s not as good as Choose Your Own Tube
    http://www.chooseyourowntube.com/

    :)

  31. Chris TV

    April 7th, 2007 at 1:57 am

    I liked what I saw of PromQueen TV so far, and to be honest the advertising is very effective when you watch it on the PromQueen website. I think a high percentage of viewers will actually go to the HairSpray Movie website as a result.

  32. neri

    April 8th, 2007 at 6:43 pm

    in what channel are they giving prom queen in??

  33. neri

    April 8th, 2007 at 6:46 pm

    in what channel are they giving the show prom queen??

  34. Seb

    April 9th, 2007 at 5:09 pm

    Part of my job asks me to locate quality media on the internet. This is something that makes up about 5% of the online content, the rest of it is pretty much just 5 second clips of cats doing “hilarious things” or a girl dancing around in her underwear. So words cannot describe what a relief it is to come across a series of videos that are consistently above average. For those who saw “Sam Has 7 Friends”, you know that it took about a dozen episodes to fully adjust to the format and develop a sense of the characters. But after that, the new episodes just couldn’t come quickly enough. Sure, Prom Queen is not going to be the next 24 or Grey’s Anatomy, but it is definitely a pioneer in online content and shouldn’t be missed.

  35. Dave

    April 10th, 2007 at 5:32 pm

    Just wanted to make a correction for you all. It’s $100,000 dollars for all 80 Ep. not per Ep. just thought I’d clear up that confusion… Also, Eisner has plans to move into longer format shows on the internet (3-5mins) this is more of a fully functional prototype used to build steam in a new medium.

  36. toml

    April 28th, 2007 at 6:29 am

    One thing the web tv stuff forgets is closed captioning.
    Sure cuts out a lot of people w/o it.

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