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Source: The Hollywood Reporter

“PENGUIN WADDLES TO DISNEY” screams the headline in the Hollywood Reporter as it reports how Walt Disney Co. outmaneuvered Time Warner’s AOL who offered more bucks for the online kids’ brand Club Penguin than old Walt did. Sources indicate Time-Warner’s bid as high as $500 million, and Disney $350 million upfront and $350 million more over the next few years “if the online property reaches certain performance metrics.”

Although this hefty sum pales compared with the $7.4 billion Disney paid (in stock) for Pixar 18 months ago and which brought Steve Jobs into Disney’s Board of Directors, it’s still nice to know that the buying power of kids is worth so much to the Mouse Man. Nobody at Sony is talking, though they had also bid on Club Penguin.

Bob Iger, Disney’s CEO and formerly president of ABC-TV which Disney also owns, called Club Penguin “a great example of creativity and technology merging.”

Club Penguin has a user base of 12 million, says the Reporter, and also has a subscription base of 700,000 users in the U.S. and Canada. These are paying customers at just under $6 a month.

Corporate shuffling begins with Penguin’s management team of Lane Merrifield, Dave Krysko and Lance Priebe continuing to run things as before but now, Merrifield will also become executive vice president of Walt Disney Internet Group. Nice.

Look for the exploitation of Club Penguin’s content “across Disney’s range of TV, film, publishing and merchandising arms” including a “Club Penguin character like Rockhopper.”

“We get a lot of kids asking to get a plush Penguin, something they could take to school,” Merrifield told the Reporter. “We’re not going to try to make 100 million Club Penguin things tomorrow.” Yeah? When then, the day after tomorrow?

Rockhopper has much to look forward to now that he’s in the Disney fold. After all, look what Disney did for Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears.