Disney Forms New Digital Studio, Debuts "Squeegees" Series

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on February 28, 2008 - 11:25am.

Los Angeles - Disney (NYSE: DIS) on Thursday announced the formation of a new digital production studio, Stage 9, which will develop original series for the Web and mobile devices. The unit's first production, a comedy series about window washers called "Squeegees," launched today on ABC.com and YouTube with Toyota as sponsor.

Stage 9, which has been in development for more than two years, has some 20 other series currently in development. The studio's videos currently cannot be embedded on third-party sites.

"We've all seen the appeal of short-form content grow over the past few years," Anne Sweeney, president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, told the Los Angeles Times.

"The launch of this experimental new media studio allows us to play in this space with some quality content, while giving us an interesting venue for telling stories in a different form."

Stage 9 will also produce a sequel to and older ABC Web series, "Voicemail";