OK, FYI here is the scoop on DisneyXD if you have boys in your family.
This will be the channel for them while Disney Channel will be for girls.
Toon Disney Television Evolves: Disney XD
August 13th, 2008 1:21 PM by Aaron H. Bynum
Enter: Disney XD
Local cable network Toon Disney, a loosely defined hub of contemporary animation programming and offshoot of media juggernaut of similar namesake, has made the bold and decisive move to re-launch its entire look and feel over the next six months. Transitioning an entire cable network's overall appeal and interface will require a great deal of effort in terms of key re-branding of the network's signature titles, but Toon Disney representatives are confident that by early 2009, Toon Disney -- or rather, Disney XD, as it will then be called -- will have found a new niche to settle into.
The emergence of Disney XD is evidence of a recurring trend in children's television; networks are moving off of a programming slate dominated by cartoons and are instead opting for a mixed media approach, enlisting kid sitcoms and other live-action alternatives to supplement their need for diversity. Attempting to match their need to find a balance of television that works and television that provides, kids cable networks are finding it necessary to further define (if not redefine) their long-term goals if they are to survive.
Toon Disney, most recently and at present a satisfactory receptacle for animation of the past decade with infrequent preemptions for more modern classics, will become Disney XD and hopefully benefit from a better-focused market approach. Disney XD will reportedly focus on a rather similar age range -- Kids 6-14 -- but will specifically target young male viewers.
"[O]ur goal with Disney XD is to have [a] success ratio with boys," Rich Ross, President, Disney Channels Worldwide, stated.
"Disney XD will showcase great stories and empowering characters with Disney's brand credibility and a cool creative factor that will set it apart from the pack."
The incorporation of alternative programming, beyond animation, is only a fraction of the changes that will constitute the make-up of Disney XD. A 24-hour, advertiser supported network that currently reaches almost 70 million households via various cable affiliates, Toon Disney / Disney XD will represent a new look at kid/tween boys on multiple platforms: online, mobile and video-on-demand, will also be affected.
According to The Walt Disney Company: " Disney XD programming will reflect the boy demographic's fundamental values of accomplishment, learning, discovery and growth, and will be differentiated by Disney-branded live-action movies, and a new library animated programming, [with other] original programming [developed by ESPN]."
Apparently fed up with fighting a losing battle in trying to please two separate audiences (of young female viewers and of young male viewers), Disney Worldwide is instead opting to develop favorable content that continues to please young female viewers [for Disney Channel] while funneling more energy into the upkeep of Disney XD for young male viewers. Efforts to have it both ways, through Disney Channel, have not met expectations in recent years.
Launch titles for the re-branding of Disney XD -- slated for February 2009 -- include an original live-action title called Aaron Stone, a short-form animated item called Hero and Not, a mock documentary comedy on two skaters under the working title Mongoose & Luther, and the computer animated international co-production RobotDz. With Disney Channel clearly the television market leader in reaching the largest number of young female viewers with popular culture, secondary education musicals, and slice-of-life comedy; Disney XD hopes to use the male equivalent -- action sports, Batman, online gaming, and inventive television animation -- to help boys' TV interests resurface once again.
The New Era of Disney XD
Through focus groups and several months of research Disney Worldwide has come to the conclusion that tween males not only want their own channel, but they deserve one as well. The unbridled success of teen singing sensations and girl-focused sitcoms on Disney Channel has long since begun to isolate a potentially lucrative audience, and the advent of Disney XD, as some hope, will curb any potential losses.
"[Boys] 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 commented to The Los Angeles Times.
Such a headquarters that fosters meaningful animation and live-action programming, much of it original, will however require more work than one might expect. Earning a meager 10% to 15% of Disney Channel's massive audience delivery, the current Toon Disney is anything but a ratings force. Although having exhibited select growth through artistic acquisitions in the international market and slow-and-steady expansion Stateside, Toon Disney remains a far cry away from being a go-to cable network for children's, much less tween boys' entertainment.
On the reinvention of the wheel, Greg Kahn, SVP of Strategic Insights for Optimedia International USA Inc., a media buying firm, affirmed that Disney is "fighting the brand perception, the very, very strong brand equity that's been in the marketplace for many, many years." He continued: "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."
Those components of Toon Disney currently existing on a global scale in full channel form as "Jetix," 19 en totem, apart from the six Toon Disney branded channels and programming similarly have the potential to witness re-branding decisions made on a case by case basis at a date beyond the Stateside launch of Disney XD.
(Sources: The Los Angeles Times, The Walt Disney Co., The New York Times)
:
