ENTERTAINMENT - TV takes step into 'Afterworld' - The Web series on MySpace is melding different kinds of media.

Then came "Prom Queen," a Web teen soap opera backed by former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael Eisner.

Now there's "Afterworld," an online animated series about a man who wakes up to find most of the world's population has vanished.

Debuting on MySpace today, "Afterworld" marks one of the most ambitious Internet shows to date, underscoring the evolution of online entertainment from amateur videos to more polished productions.

Created by Santa Monica-based Electric Farm Entertainment, "Afterworld" spans 130 episodes, each lasting two to three minutes. The show's roughly $3-million budget makes it the most expensive series of its kind to run on News Corp.'s social networking site, which draws more than 115 million active users worldwide each month.

"We're confident this is going to be an enormous success," said Jeff Berman, general manager for MySpace TV, which will release the first 10 episodes today. Starting Monday, new episodes will be released daily over the next several weeks.

The show is free and will be supported by advertising revenue, which will require it to sustain an audience to generate enough revenue to make money.

"It's an interesting new step in the development of online entertainment, but the challenge is that there is so much content out there," said Mike McGuire, a digital media analyst with research firm Gartner Inc.

Nonetheless, "Afterworld" is off to a promising start. Some of the episodes premiered this year on Budweiser's dedicated video site, bud.tv, and on YouTube, where it became a viral hit, drawing more than 1 million views.

"What we're trying to do is create a unique form of entertainment as well as an original business model," said Stan Rogow, former executive producer of Disney Channel's hit show "Lizzie McGuire" and one of the principals in Electric Farm Entertainment.

Rogow launched the digital studio this year. One of his partners is Jeff Sagansky, former head of CBS Entertainment and former co-president of Sony Pictures Entertainment. Another is veteran writer Brent Friedman, whose credits include the "Dark Skies" TV series and the popular video game "Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars."

The partners aim to get in on the ground floor of the new ways entertainment is being delivered and consumed.