USA TODAY International Edition
Characters show ‘ what kids really go through’
those programs,” says Terri Minsky, co-creator of Lizzie McGuire, Disney’s 9 rst massive hit that elevated Duff to stardom.
Like other kid networks, Disney offers preschool programs during daytime hours, graduates to the afterschool crowd, and has crafted a narrower niche as an evening home for “ tweens ”— older kids on the cusp of adolescence.
The recipe is a blend of traditional family comedy that the major networks have all but abandoned; it often plants a 12- or 13- year-old girl at the center, with an element of wish- ful 9 llment fantasy. Lizzie
captured Duff as a
middle- schooler
whose animated alter
ego popped up to reveal her own daydreams and worries — and by extension, her viewers’.
The latest series, The Suite Life of Zack &
Cody, features identical twins who live in the swank hotel where their single mom is a lounge singer. Hannah Montana revolves around a pop star who adopts an alter ego to protect her identity at school, where she yearns to be treated like a “ normal” kid.
Nicole Maldonado, 13, of Valley Cottage, N. Y., says Disney is a favorite. Her top pick: The Suite Life, which taps into those fantasies. “ I just love the theme of it, that they think they’re rich when they’re really not,” she says of the towheaded Dylan and Cole Sprouse.
“ The bottom line is you know you have good characters when kids go, ‘ Boy, wouldn’t it be nice to hang out with them one day,’ ” says Michael Poryes, the executive producer behind Hannah and Raven.
“ That’s the secret, really, to the Disney Channel,” Poryes says, “ and what I believe makes them different from Nick,” which is still the uncontested champ of kids TV, with a lot more animation. “ They’re about the funny, but we’re more about the reality and the truth, what kids really go through: ‘ My friend is going to get dumped by this guy. What am I going to do?’ ”
Disney’s biggest draw has been original made- for- TV movies — the channel has made 60 of them — led by Duff’s Cadet Kelly in 2002 and this month’s Twitches. Twitches, starring one- time sitcom sisters Tia and Tamera Mowry, 27, drew an eye- popping 21.5 million viewers in four airings on its 9 rst weekend and was the week’s most popular cable program. Another holidaythemed movie, Halloweentown, starring Debbie Reynolds, 73, has aired 66 times over the past seven years and continues to rank in the weekly top 10.
Disney has its own farm system of teenage stars, an echo of the old Hollywood studio system.
Before starring in her own series, Raven lent her voice to the animated action series Kim Possible and starred in The Cheetah Girls, another top movie. Brenda Song, 17, a regular on Suite Life, previously appeared on Phil of the Future and in three Disney movies. The Mowrys were well known to Disney viewers via reruns of Sister, Sister, the ABC sitcom that launched their careers in 1994.
The much smaller cable network The N, which calls itself “ the authentic voice for teens,” targets older viewers and tackles more mature subjects, such as sexual identity and faith. Cartoon Network has its Adult Swim block, a powerful lure for kids and teens in spite of — or because of — its title. Even Nick revels in the crasswith its liveaction comedies, in the name of getting a laugh from increasingly savvy kids.
Disney, in contrast, is positioned as a safe haven of chastity and political correctness, where the use of phrases considered part of the teen vernacular — “ Oh, my God!” or the eye-rolling rejoinder “Are you blind?”— are expressly forbidden.
Not to mention sex or drugs.
“ Kids can enjoy it without feeling weirded-out that they’re watching something with their parents” that either might deem inappropriate, says Raven, who has spawned a perfume and board game.
“ I feel so safe every day going to work,” says Song, 17, a Disney actress since age 12 who just 9 lmed her 9 rst onscreen kiss. “ There are so many jobs out there that call for girls my age to do things we’re just not ready for.”
Says Poryes: “ Parents need to feel ‘ I can turn this on, my kids can watch it, and I don’t have to be in the room.’ ”
Shows are imbued with moral messages, such as friendship, loyalty and preteen angst, that wrap themselves in comedy as an antidote to saccharine sentimentality.
Disney Channel has an unusual history.
Founded in 1983 as a commercialfree pay-cable network, it depended on monthly subscriber fees. In the late 1990s, the channel began a conversion to a free network, which boosted its reach from 14 million homes in 1996 to 88 million now.
At the same time, the channel began a more aggressive programming effort that moved away from reliance on concert specials, moldy cartoons, Disney feature 9 lms and a remake of ’ 50s icon The Mickey Mouse Club.
It ramped up original series aimed at the tween crowd.
Tweens’ parents grew up on Happy Days
and Full House, an audience the major networks mostly have abandoned. So it’s no surprise Disney focused efforts on Fridays, making it a welcome presence at pajama parties and family pizza nights where sibling ABC’s TGIF block once ruled.
“Tweens was a really underserved market; network TV was going not in that direction, and theatricals moved outside of doing family movies,” says Rich Ross, president of Disney Channel Worldwide.
And while “ Nick has done live action, its biggest hits were animated,” an arena that Disney Channel has found more challenging.
Cartoon Network, on the other hand, is all animation, so it’s more popular with younger kids and boys. “ It seemed the 9- to 14- yearolds really didn’t have a lot of places to go for entertainment media,” Ross says.
Unlike competitors, Disney doesn’t depend solely on ratings. The channel remains commercialfree, although it does air PBS- like sponsorship messages.
And cable- system operators pay Disney nearly twice as much to carry the channel as they do Nickelodeon, says Kagan Research, so the channel has bigger pro 9 t margins than most cable channels. “ I would call the transition from pay to basic a success,” says Kagan analyst Derek Baines.
Disney has since spun off allanimation Toon Disney as a separate channel, and it claims 23 overseas Disney Channels.
Meanwhile, Nick, which paved the way for Disney with shows such as Clarissa Explains It All, has refocused on live-action tween shows with Zoey 101, starring Britney’s sis Jamie Lynn Spears, 14, and Unfabulous, with Julia Roberts’ niece Emma, 14, who has her own Nick- produced soundtrack album.
Nickelodeon says it isn’t reacting to its smaller competitor, but Disney’s Ross isn’t convinced. “ Breaking young stars who could also be music acts, that’s more than a little coincidental.”
Says Nick spokesman Dan Martinsen: “ Maybe it is a coincidence, but we have the 9 ve highest- rated tween shows on TV.”
Will Disney’s wholesome appeal endanger the network as savvy preteens are tempted by ever more lurid hookups on MTV?
“ Wholesome is a very weighted word,” Ross says. “ We live in a generation when parents and kids are struggling with how fast they have to grow up. What line do we have to cross to 9 nd that we’ve gone too far?”