Friday night was a big night for most kids in this nation. I'm not sure what the universe of kids, aged 9-14 are, but I'm pretty sure many - if not most - were watching the much anticipated High School Musical 2. My older kids are 6 and 4, and as of 7.36am on Tuesday morning, they watched more or less about 20 times since Friday night (including right now)
Worse still, my daughter doesn't even want to fast forward all the ads. Of course I immediately grounded her and gave her a stern talking to about the dangers of 30-second spots.
My kids were not alone. In fact, according to early estimates from the Disney channel (we'll take their word for it), an incredible 17.2 million watched HSM2 (HSM1 was watched by 7.8 MM when it aired in January 2006), making it the most-watched television program of the week for both cable and network - and the most-watched show of any kind in basic cable history.
[including one particular Dad who claimed he was feeding the baby and there was nothing else to watch]
Here's where we start going off the rails...
A fairly misleading MediaPlannerBuyer headline reads, "Disney's Ross: High School Musical 2 proves strength of TV movie biz", but drilling down a bit deeper into the source article from the New York Times reflects that Rich Ross, President of Disney Channel Worldwide is in fact referring to the channel's movie biz model (coupled with attempts to reposition the channel amongst an older audience)
According to Ross, “People talk about ‘High School Musical’ as a franchise,” he said. “The franchise is the Disney Channel original movie.”
No Rich. High School Musical is the franchise. The Disney Channel is its fortunate beneficiary. Whilst an attempt to do an HBO on the Disney Channel (along the same lines of what The Sopranos did for the premium pay TV channel) certainly has precedent, it smacks of insular hubris.
For starters, just how far do you think Disney will be able to milk the HSM franchise? Like Police Academy perhaps? Maybe even into the teens? Even so, it will fall into the same danger zone that our friend Harry Potter did (hint: girls don't stay girls forever and boys voices aren't pure like Troy Bolton for an eternity)
Personally, I wondered why Disney didn't take HSM2 to the big screens. Maybe one of the media mavens can do a rough side by side comparison between 30-second spot ad revenue and no doubt a healthy $150MM+ that this could have racked up on the silver screen.
I take nothing away from this momentous moment in cable television history, but I remind all TV hopefuls that moments like these are nowadays like Hailey's Comet in terms of frequency, originality and impact. I certainly will wait with baited breath to see how quickly and effectively Disney can fill its TV movie mall with stores to support its anchor tenant, HSM, and in doing so, scale and fulfill against its business model.
Then again I might not exactly hold my breath for fear of losing conscious.
What team? Wildcats! What team? Wildcats.
