First, read this article from the LA Times:

Disney to target boys with rebranded cable channel

The entertainment giant plans to relaunch Toon Disney as Disney XD, which will be aimed at boys ages 6 to 14.

Someday, Disney hopes its princes will come.

The entertainment giant, which has made billions catering to the princess fantasies of young girls, plans to relaunch Toon Disney as Disney XD, a cable channel that will target boys. The move, under wraps for more than a year, is an attempt by the company to capture a market that has long eluded it.

Starting in February, Disney XD will seek to become to young dudes what Disney Channel, with its lineup of tweeny bopper programs such as “High School Musical,” “Hannah Montana” and “Camp Rock” is to girls. Disney XD, aiming at boys ages 6 to 14, will offer original action-adventure and comedy series, movies, animation and sports-themed shows developed with Walt Disney Co.-owned ESPN.

“What was clear to me, and clear to us, is we had a huge opportunity to create content that were boys’ favorites,” said Rich Ross, president of Disney Channels Worldwide.

Tween boys, ages 9 to 14, account for about $50 billion in spending worldwide, said Greg Kahn, senior vice president of strategic insights for media buying firm Optimedia International USA Inc. Advertisers are eager to reach these young consumers, not just snag a portion of their disposable income, but to build a loyalty they hope will extend into even more free-spending teen years, he said.

But the Disney Channel has struggled for years to find the right programming formula to lure boys, who tend to gravitate to Viacom’s Nickelodeon and Time Warner’s Cartoon Network — that is, when they’re not spending time playing video games. Disney Channel’s popular live-action shows, from its early tween phenomenon, “Lizzie McGuire,” through its current pop-culture sensation, “Hannah Montana,” mainly attract girls.

Efforts to bring in more boys, through male-led series such as “Even Stevens” or “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” still haven’t succeeded enough to close the gender gap between female and male viewers.

Animation, traditionally a draw for boys, has been a struggle for Disney Channel, although its newest series, “Phineas and Ferb,” appears to be building a strong male following.

But so far, the network has failed to produce a blockbuster to compete with Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants;” or match the guy-centric focus of Cartoon Network, which one ad buyer described as the ESPN of animation.

“You’re fighting the brand perception, the very, very strong brand equity that’s been in the marketplace for many, many years,” Kahn said of Disney Channel. “It would almost require a completely separate effort to reach tween boys, with a completely different name somehow associated with the Disney property, to reach these tween males.”

None of this is news to Ross, who, with his executive team, spent more than a year with focus groups pondering the eternal verities: “What do boys want?”

The answer, perhaps not surprisingly, is that boys want it all. “What we heard, loud and clear, is they expect from Disney this broad array,” Ross said, with programs running the gamut from animation to action-adventure to comedy. “They expect from Disney the whole thing, including movies.” In short, tween boys are looking for more than a show or two wedged in the midst of the musical theater-inspired programs that have come to define Disney Channel. They want, Disney says, a channel they can call their own.

“They want a place, essentially a headquarters for them where their favorite content exists, that has this broad array of shapes and sizes and tenors and complexities, and treats them with the respect that Disney Channel treats all kids, and the girls are fanatical about,” Ross said.

Instead of tinkering with what works — Disney Channel, which has spawned two billion-dollar creative franchises in High School Musical and Hannah — Ross relaunched a struggling cable asset, Toon Disney, into this destination for boys.

Toon Disney pulls only 10% to 15% of the viewers of Disney Channel, despite the cable network’s reach into nearly 70 million U.S. households. The Nielsen ratings reflect its hodgepodge lineup of geriatric kids shows, such as as “Power Rangers Jungle Fury” and recycled animated offerings such as “Batman: The Animated Series,” and “Jackie Chan Adventures,” and movies.

As the rebranded Disney XD, the ad-supported cable network will boast original series, such as “Aaron Stone,” a live-action show about a video game virtuoso who leads a secret double life as a crime fighter. The show boils down to a male fantasy version of “Hannah Montana,” in which an ordinary teen leads a double life as a rock star.

Former “The Wonder Years” child star Fred Savage directed the pilot for “Mongoose & Luther,” a mock documentary series about two best friends who set out to become the world’s greatest skateboarders.

The project was created by Matt Dearborn and Tom Burkhard, who worked on Disney Channel’s “Even Stevens.”

Established animated series, from “Phineas and Ferb,” to “Batman: The Animated Series,” will air on Disney XD alongside new offerings, such as RoboDz, a short-form series developed in partnership with Toei Animation Co. of Japan, in which robotic life forms defend Earth from space invaders. Plans for an online presence and mobile offerings are also in the works.

“We know we have a huge opportunity to take that asset and make it every bit as powerful as Disney Channel or Playhouse Disney,” Ross said.

dawn.chmielewski @latimes.com

Now, In one aspect, this is brilliant. DC does have a predominately female audience, and to relaunch TD as this new channel could be a brilliant business decision. So as a shareholder, I must salute Rich Ross.

On the other hand, my initial reaction would be to hit Ross with a 2 by 4. I don’t watch Toon Disney for three reasons. 1) It requires using the digital cable box, and that only works with one TV in the house and not with my TiVo. 2) I cannot obtain a reliable schedule guide for that channel, so I never know what’s on. 3) Most of what I would want to watch (KP & ADJL) I can just watch on DC.

Honestly, I think what they should have done is not turn DC so blatantly female biased. In the article they make the point:”Animation, traditionally a draw for boys, has been a struggle for Disney Channel,” And I was freakin’ screaming “KIM POSSIBLE. IDIOTS.”

They had a chance with KP to court the male fans and the female fans. They chose to make everything pink and marginalize the male fans. They had a chance, and they lost it. And now, they’re taking out KP’s future with the end of Toon Disney.

And even worse, by making a new “DC for Boys” they’re gonna be intentionally writing off all males from DC and all females from the new channel. Further narrowing the audience for both channels.

Disney is supposed to be family entertainment - programing for EVERYONE. And further narrowing the demographic targets is not the Disney way.

Walt Disney Co.’s (DIS) fiscal third-quarter net income 9% as growth in its media networks and theme-park operations more than offset a decline in studio entertainment.

In the quarter ended June 28, the media and entertainment giant reported net income of $1.28 billion, or 66 cents a share, compared with $1.18 billion, or 57 cents a share, a year earlier. Unusual items added 4 cents a share to the latest quarter’s earnings.

Revenue climbed 2% to $9.24 billion.

The breakdown per division was:

Media Networks Oper Rev $4.12B Vs $3.83B
Media Networks Oper Net $1.47B Vs $1.36B
Parks And Resorts Oper Rev $3.04B Vs $2.90B
Parks And Resorts Oper Net $641M Vs $621M
Studio Entertainment Oper Rev $1.43B Vs $1.78B
Studio Entertainment Oper Net $97M Vs $190M
Consumer Pdts Oper Rev $642M Vs $537M
Consumer Pdts Oper Net $113M Vs $118M

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif., Jun 26, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Disney.com reached
record traffic levels as guests logged on to watch the full-length Disney
Channel Original Movie “Camp Rock.” The online event, which began at 5 p.m. PT
Monday, June 23 and ended at 11:59 p.m. PT Tuesday, June 24, attracted 863,000
video plays and increased traffic to Disney.com by 37 percent (6/23/08 vs.
6/22/08).

Camp Rock’s online success follows the movie’s unprecedented multi-platform
premiere weekend which delivered an impressive 24.5 million total televisions
viewers across the U.S. and Canada and reached 6.0 million Kids 6-11 and more
than 6.1 million Tweens 9-14, ranking as the week’s #1 TV program in those youth
demographics. Disney Channel’s debut of “Camp Rock” ranks as cable TV’s #1
entertainment telecast of the 2007-08 season (8.9 million Total Viewers). On
ABC-TV, the movie was the #1 summer Saturday entertainment telecast on any
broadcast network in almost six years, and is ABC Family’s #1 movie broadcast
ever among Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14.

Key performance highlights for the Disney.com Camp Rock online streaming event
include:

– Camp Rock video plays totaled more than 863,000

– Traffic to Disney.com increased by 37 percent on Monday, June 23 (vs.
6/22/08)

– Camp Rock Web sites (video player and supersite) scored 1.9 million visitors
and 10 million page views during the entire event (6/23-24)

– Unique visitor traffic overall to Disney.com XD (DXD) on Monday, June 23 was
more than twice the previous one-day record (953,592 vs. 465,421)

– The Camp Rock Channel in DXD, which hosted the video player, had more page
views in one day (6/23) than any other DXD Channel has ever recorded in a full
week.

“This is one of those inflection points for online entertainment at Disney.com
and really shows the power of marrying great content with a great online
experience,” stated Paul Yanover, executive vice president and managing
director, Disney Online. “Disney Channel has created another sensation with
‘Camp Rock’ and we were thrilled to have the opportunity to feature it again on
Disney.com.”

Video streaming services for the Camp Rock online event were primarily provided
by Limelight Networks. Limelight Networks provides a variety of content delivery
services, including live event services, on-demand delivery, website
acceleration, and professional services across select Disney properties. The
companies have had an ongoing relationship since 2006.

All data sources are internal tracking.

SDS has long owned the domain missionkimpossible.com but we are proud to announce that we have now set it up as an alternate address for the Mission Kim Possible yahoo group. Check it out, it’s much easier to use and to link.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

In a word, “Meh.”

In several words, “Demi did okay, but the movie had no soul. It was just a bunch of random songs”

In detail: http://dcfans.tv/2008/06/22/my-thoughts-on-camp-rock/

Source: http://blogs.accesshollywood.com/archives/2008/06/meet-the-fresh-faces-of-high-s.html

Considering this latest incarnation of “High School Musical” has the added line of “Senior Year” to its title, I think we can all be pretty sure this is the last we will be seeing of Zac, Vanessa, Ashley, Lucas, Monique or Corbin in the halls of East High. Unless of course someone wants to make “College Musical.” Instead, should this feature film version of “High School Musical” be a huge hit, I think Disney may keep its franchise alive by introducing us to a brand new class of kids.

That’s exactly why I think such a big deal has been made about the three new cast members making their debut in HSM3. Disney held an international casting search involving over 1,000 teen actors across the United States, Canada, and the U.K. to find three sophomore Wildcats. Matt Prokop, Justin Martin, and Jemma McKenzie-Brown were the lucky three plucked out of near obscurity.

17-year-old Matt’s biggest role to date was a small part in “Hannah Montana”. 14-year-old Justin played Simba in “The Lion King” on Broadway. British born Jemma had a role in a BBC show called “The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard.” After this film comes out October 24th, I have no doubt their names will become as familiar to pre-teen and teenage girls everywhere as the rest of the HSM cast.

I traveled to the set and had a chance to sit down with the three newbie’s who seem to be fitting in with the group quite perfectly. Ashley Tisdale has taken Jemma under her wing. Vanessa Hudgens admits to whipping out her English accent around Jemma. Corbin Bleu has the gang over to his room almost every night to play video games. Everyone is giving the trio tips on how to stay grounded should fame strike.  According to Matt their main advice was not let fame go to their heads,

“Be yourself mainly. That’s the one thing they said. With all of the success, just don’t change. Just be who you are and true to yourself.”

Matt, who before this role never sang or danced, plays Jimmie “The Rocket” Zara, a basketball player who idolizes Zac’s character, Troy Bolton. He told me being famous is not why he took this part,

“I think we’re all in it just to be an actor and just enjoy acting more than the fans and the fame.  It’s all about a career.”

Justin is Jimmie’s “partner in crime” as he calls it, Donny, who is the basketball teams ball boy. He’s a small little guy with a huge personality who wants to be the next Will Smith or Denzel Washington. Justin’s big personality landed him at the hospital though with a bad bruise while on set a few weeks ago,

“I have no gymnastics or tumbling background and I decided I was going to do a back flip on some cement and it didn’t work out well.”

Jemma comes to East High as Tiara Gold; a British foreign exchange student who has her sights set on Sharpay and becomes her personal assistant. She told me that from the moment the news came out she was cast her life changed,

“My friend wrote me and said just type in McKenzie-Brown in Google. I typed it in and flash, flash, flash. Matt Prokop, Justin Martin, Jemma McKenzie-Brown all over. It was crazy!”

Those Google searches are only going to grow and grow when the film comes out on the big screen this fall!

I think it’s crazy how just being announced as a star in an upcoming DCOM gets people so much attention. Just look at what’s happened to Demi Lovato - And Camp Rock’s still a week away!

Making A Tween Scene

Disney, Nick Rivalry Keeps the Hits Coming

by Stuart Miller — Multichannel News, 3/3/2008

For younger viewers — especially the increasingly coveted 9-14-year-old tweens — this is a golden age of television, with networks churning out a surfeit of critical and commercial hits. Fueling much of this positive creative energy is the ever-intensifying clash of two programming titans: Nickelodeon, once the sole superpower in cable’s kidvid universe, and Disney Channel, owned by America’s most potent brand of family entertainment.

“For the longest time Nickelodeon was the dominant player but there is now a real race,” Katz Television Group vice president of programming Bill Carroll said. “Nickelodeon has not gone down but relatively they’re not as high.”

Carroll acknowledged the buzz generated by Disney Channel’s Hannah Montana and two High School Musical movies, saying, “In perception, Disney leads by a head. And in the entertainment industry, perception is reality.”

Still, despite the perceived and real challenges Nickelodeon faces, it would be hard to find a healthier network, said Derek Baine, a cable television analyst at SNL Kagan Research: “The network still has a huge cash flow margin — at 67% it’s one of highest in the industry.”

Though both networks were born in the 1980s, Nickelodeon was the first to explode on the pop culture scene in 1991 with a hit parade of original cartoons such as Doug, Rugrats, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Hey Arnold and Wild Thornberrys.

The network flexed its muscles further with the live-action series Clarissa Explains It All, a ratings win that put an end to the myth that boys would tune out any show with a girl star.

In 1994, the network formalized its daytime Nick Jr. block, creating another line of unmatched successes with shows like Blue’s Clues, Dora the Explorer and Bob the Builder.

Then in 1999 came a little underwater cartoon about a sea sponge and his friends. Spongebob Squarepants quickly became an exalted and iconic franchise, paving the way for more animated hits such as The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, The Fairly OddParents and Avatar the Last Airbender.

The network was also able to develop future audiences for its subsequent tween lineup (slotted in blocks called SNICK and TEENick), including Drake and Josh, Zoey 101 and Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide.

The Walt Disney Co.’s Disney Channel, on the other hand, started as a premium network, which limited its audience; and the network slowly found its footing after moving to basic cable in 1997.

While Disney produced the long-running original cartoon Kim Possible, it never posed a serious threat to Nick’s animation crown. But as the new millennium arrived, it began to capture the public’s — and especially tweens’ — attention with shows such as Even Stevens and Lizzie McGuire. Adding That’s So Raven and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody to its mix, Disney gradually built a foundation that more than rivaled Nickelodeon in attracting tweens.

In 2006, the network scored in a big way with the first High School Musical TV movie and its Hannah Montana series, both of which zoomed beyond mere hit status to cultural phenomenon. HSM, for instance, yielded the year’s top-selling album and the fastest-selling DVD of a TV movie ever.

For Disney Channels Worldwide president Rich Ross, such successes reflect the company’s desire and ability to “not just to make [certain shows] a favorite show, but a part of people’s lives.”

But Nickelodeon hasn’t been sitting idly by. Last year, it debuted two original cartoons built off pre-existing properties (Back at the Barnyard from a Nickelodeon movie and Tak and the Power of Juju from a video game).

More significantly, TEENick, which had retrenched from two nights to one, expanded with three new live-action tween-targeted series, The Naked Brothers Band, Just Jordan and iCarly.

Carroll credits Nickelodeon with a “shrewd” approach — countering Disney’s charge with a music-oriented show and another with a strong girl lead yet finding ways to make them unique. Naked Brothers features real kids writing and performing their own songs and iCarly is built around the character’s fictional webcasts, allowing the Web site and show to tap into viewer content.

“They’re taking Disney head on with tweens but not head-to-head, they’ve given their shows a twist to the left or the right,” Carroll said.

Despite the strong reception, Nick’s new shows were somewhat overshadowed by Disney, between the record television ratings reaped by High School Musical 2 in 2007 and the box-office bonanza of the Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds concert movie earlier this year.

“Disney has really ramped up to become a destination for programming,” said Brad Adgate, senior vice-president, director of research for Horizon Media. “Nickelodeon does very well still, but Disney has supplanted it as the top-rated network.”

Still, neither network can be pronounced a hands-down winner.

Disney was indeed tops last year in primetime, not only with kids but with total viewers, thanks to HSM 2, which scored over 17 million viewers — nearly double Nickelodeon’s own wildly successful TV movie, SpongeBob Atlantis SquarePantis — and Hannah Montana, the top scripted cable series among the 6-11 and 9-14 demos for the second straight year. (Disney’s Suite Life was second.)

But Disney’s dominance didn’t extend beyond primetime. Nickelodeon, which has seven of the top 10 weekday preschool shows, was once again No. 1 in viewers and all kids demos for total day. With kids ages 2-11, Nickelodeon averaged 1.2 million viewers overall, nearly a quarter-million kids more than Disney. (Cartoon Network trails Disney by another 350,000.) But Disney’s primetime dominance was strong enough that it also won the total-day tween demo, inching ahead 518,000 to 498,000 among 9-14-year-olds.

“Disney has latched onto something that is really resonating with kids and young teens,” said Adgate. But in addition to a magical programming touch, Disney has a bit of good fortune in timing and its remarkable marketing might.

Disney began its live-action dominance at a time when television lineups were over-saturated with animation, according to Nickelodeon president Cyma Zarghami, leaving 9-14 and even 6-11 year-olds craving something new.

Disney was also finally ready for success. When Lizzie McGuire emerged, the network was a one-hit wonder, Ross said, but this time around it had a “bigger foundation” of popular shows.

Then Disney did what it does so well — a publicity blitzkrieg for HSM and Hannah Montana. The network spent more pushing Hannah Montana then it had on any previous show, according to Disney executives. They would not disclose specific figures.

“We do launch things incredibly well but we also don’t forget about them,” Ross said, adding that he’s fortunate because virtually all of Disney’s vast empire is devoted to family entertainment so “I don’t spend my time negotiating [with third parties]. I spend it collaborating.”

“Disney has an unbelievable marketing machine,” Zarghami said. “They can go from zero to 100 miles an hour in a short period.”

While acknowledging the ratings success of HSM and Hannah Montana, Zarghami noted that the hottest shows often burn out the quickest and everyone says tweens, especially tween girls, are fickle. And while Nickelodeon strives for gender-balanced shows that will provide longer runs, Disney’s biggest phenomena do skew more heavily toward fad-oriented girls, since they’re more susceptible to product-driven marketing affiliated with a popular show.

In 2008, nearly 70% of Hannah Montana’s 6-11 and 9-14 viewers are girls. Thus, Adgate said, they become passé more quickly — especially compared to a long-running revenue-generator such as Drake and Josh.

“We would love to permeate the culture like that, but we’d rather be the leader in ratings overall,” Zarghami said, “Constancy and steadiness are crucial to us. Slow and steady wins the race.”

Disney is already on the look out for its next big hit. The company has been promoting the Jonas Brothers band, first on its record label and in movie and television soundtracks and then last year on Hannah Montana, including on an episode that followed HSM 2.

The band then toured with Miley Cyrus and appeared in her Hannah Montana movie. Disney Channel is set to unleash a TV movie (Camp Rock) and a series (J.O.N.A.S.) starring the band.

Ross said Disney knows that “every show can’t be a multiplatform global phenomenon, some shows are just television shows and that’s great.” From that perspective, Disney is already keeping the pressure on Nickelodeon: its Wizards of Waverly Place, about a Latino family with magical power, is actually cable’s top-ranked series with tween and 6-11 girls so far in 2008.

Disney is even gunning for Nickelodeon in animation now, having just hired away Eric Coleman — who had been at Nick for 15 years — and naming him senior vice president, development, for Walt Disney Television Animation. And February saw Disney’s latest animation entry, Phineas and Ferb, which debuted with strong ratings across every demographic.

But Nickelodeon, where animation remains “our bread and butter,” according to Zarghami, has a new toon coming this spring, Mighty B, created by Saturday Night Live regular Amy Poehler. “We think you’re going to be reading a lot about this show because it’s hilarious and because it has an interesting story,” Zarghami said.

The network has plans for a nearly 50% increase in animation production this year. Zarghami has particularly high hopes for a major new cartoon slated for 2009 starring the four penguins from the Dreamworks’ Madagascar, which will debut on the heels of the movie’s sequel.

Just as Disney is upping the ante in animation, Nickelodeon has been going after the “family” market more in its Nick at Nite programming, boosting ratings with reruns of shows like The George Lopez Show. “Family viewing is a big opportunity for us going forward, especially in primetime,” Zarghami said.

On the digital front, both networks are making major moves in their digital channels: Nickelodeon moved The N, its tween-oriented block off its shared space on Noggin and into its own channel (replacing GAS); this gives the company three digital channels for progressive viewership: Noggin for 2-5, NickToons for 6-11 and The N for 9-14.

Disney, meanwhile, is pouring time and resources into its boy-oriented Jetix block on Toon Disney. “We have an aggressive development building-out for early 2009,” said Ross. To create a Hannah Montana-esque buzz among boys, “we will go for the full panoply of platforms. We are talking to every division here and our company is unrivaled with assets.”

Feel free to use these Save Kim Day email ideas from Binski when crafting your letters for KP or any other show.

Staring at a blank page? Looking for some ideas about what to write
Disney for this Save Kim Day?

Here are some ideas for you. Just pick a question and answer it in a
paragraph or two. Remember to be polite.
1. What is most memorable from the series?
2. Does your family watch the show together?
3. Why is Kim Possible your favorite show?
4. What else do you like on Disney Channel?
5. When you found out that KP had been canceled, how did it make you
feel?
6. Which characters would you want to see more?
7. Why is Kim a hero?
8. Why is Kim a role model?
9. How many people do you know are fans?
10. Do you have any KP gear? What else would you like to buy?

If you wrote about something else, please share your ideas with us.

Booya!

Binski