My 18 month old daughter watches a lot of the Disney Channel. Her tv usually stays there since I watch the HD big screen in the next room. I happened to flip on her little tv during her nap and caught the premiere of Jump In. I wasn't sure what I was watching, i.e. I didn't know it was a new movie/premiere. I just recognized the kid from High School Musical and thought "What is my company doing now?" Turns out, the pieces I caught were pretty well put together. I wasn't sure exactly how they justified the over-the-top dance routine at the end of the jump rope competition, but the double-dutch patrons didn't seem to flinch at all, so I guess it's all part of the pseudo-musical style.
It looks like Disney is locked in on their target demo for the moment. I'll take it, especially since the stock is up near a 52-week high these days.
(Multichannel News) – High School Musical? That’s so yesterday for Disney Channel viewers. The spec-tacle of the moment is Jump In. That fast-paced, high-stepping movie involving a Double Dutch rope-skipping competition is now Disney’s most-watched telefilm ever, drawing a record 8.2 million viewers in its Jan. 12 debut. That beats last year’s debut at this time of the multimedia phenomenon High School Musical by a half-million viewers. Musical drew a then-record audience of 7.7 million. That, in turn, leads to the question of the moment: Just how hot is Disney with young viewers? The Jan. 20, 2006 premiere of High School Musical is now only the fourth-most watched film on the network in the past year. Besides Jump In!, it trails last August’s girl-powered musical Cheetah Girls 2 (8.1 million viewers) and this past October’s Return to Halloweentown (7.8 million), the fourth installment of the fright-fest franchise. If that wasn’t enough, the soundtrack of Jump In! debuted at number five on the Jan. 10 Billboard Music Charts, with 48,840 copies sold. By comparison, the High School Musical soundtrack took seven weeks to break the top five, on its way to No. 1. It eventually finished as the country’s top-selling album last year, with more than 2 million units sold. “We’ve gone from strength to strength,” said Disney Channel Worldwide president of entertainment Gary Marsh. “We all thought High School Musical was the top of the ladder, but it was only a bridge to the next level,” he said. Marsh attributed Jump In!’s success to the network’s now tried-and-true game plan: Blitz kids with previews of the movie on both the channel and on disney-channel.com weeks prior to its premiere to build up anticipation. Then, sit back and let tweens and their parents tune into the movie’s debut in record numbers. Given the incredible success of Jump In!, you’d figure Disney has finally reached its ratings pinnacle, right? Not necessarily, says Marsh. “The answer is to keep making great movies that inspire kids with positive messages and positive music, and if we keep doing that, there is no limit,” he said. Marsh can hedge his bets on how high is up for its original movies because he knows he has one major wild card left in his hand: the sequel to High School Musical is scheduled for August.
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