The goal of my research is to take a close look at Disney's history of successful feature animated and live-action musicals to demonstrate that these movies are the source of Disney's success and should be their current focus as well. I am specifically interested in the recent movie High School Musical, and I plan to use it as a case study about how musicals in general are a better source of entertainment for children. Disney's marketing of High School Musical made use of many new forms of media and took advantage of the cross-platform media available to such an all-encompassing conglomerate. I also will look at research studies concerning children's attentiveness to different forms of media to show that they are more likely to show repeated interest in and remember songs than standard dialogue. How many of your favorite childhood songs were from Disney movies?

    The 2006 Annual Report from The Walt Disney Company summarizes the financial status of the company in comparison to the past two years. It is sent to every shareholder and available online as well. While reading through their statistics, I was looking to see if they made mention of “High School Musical” as having any amount of effect on their success and to see how much they specifically credited made-for-TV movies or feature animation as key to their survival.
    Disney has their hands in a large variety of markets, from their parks and resorts to movies to cable TV channels, international markets, and consumer products, and their newest endeavor with the Walt Disney Internet Group. Each of these components contributes to their overall financial success. Featured on the title page of the the section on “Media Networks: Cable Networks” is a two-page spread picture of the cast of “High School Musical,” claiming that nearly 90 million viewers have seen the movie since its debut on the Disney Channel.
    Overall, the company boasts revenues at $34,385 million for the year, a seven percent increase since 2005. For perspective, 2005’s revenues were a four percent increase from those of 2004. Their net income weighed in at $3,374 million, which is thirty three percent higher than last year’s income. The percent difference between 2005 and 2004 was only eight percent (p.57). Obviously they’re heading in the right direction, up. But when I was looking at the numbers for their Media Networks section, nothing seemed unusual or different from the previous year. The eleven percent increase to revenue of $14,638 million is close to the twelve percent increase last year (p.59). The increase specifically from cable networks (as opposed to broadcast television) was ten percent, whereas last year’s revenues increased by thirteen percent (p.60). At least when looking at the numbers, it doesn’t look like the cable networks experienced any sort of huge jump from previous years.
    The note about Disney’s purchase of Pixar, however, shared some relevant insight into the company’s philosophy of the nature of feature animated films: “Disney believes that the creation of high quality feature animation is a key driver of success across many of its businesses and provides content useful across a variety of traditional and new platforms throughout the world.” (p.83) Not only do they consider feature animation important in its own right, but they see the multitude of possibilities that it creates in their other markets. Disney is already used to the idea of cross marketing, because they’ve existed across so many different forms of media for a long time already. I’m glad to see that they’re sticking to tradition in putting feature animation at the top of their priorities, because it has been proven to be their most successful endeavor as well as a valuable fuel for the rest of their departments.

Note: Page numbers are based on the print version of the Annual Report. To download a PDF copy, click on the tab labeled “Financials.”

TELEVISION; Oh, Grow Up, Mr. Ross - New York Times
Jacques Steinberg, October 22, 2006

In this article, Steinberg presents an inside look at the daily work of Mr. Rich Ross, president of Disney Channel Worldwide. He is at the head of the company responsible for what most children watch on television, not just in this country but all over the world. Mr. Ross often consults with an expert in the area of child audiences when making decisions about Disney’s television programming, that is, he has a family friend’s eleven year old daughter take a look at what Disney’s been working on and offer her opinion. But that anecdote is not meant to minimize his credibility. In fact, Mr. Ross has worked hard to keep up in the changing nature of children’s marketing, and he’s been quite successful. He was able to coordinate the publicity of “High School Musical” between Disney’s radio stations, magazines, and websites, which ended up as the perfect combination to create such a strong fan base. It’s nice once in a while to get a glimpse at what goes on in the boardrooms and the studios, and to see that the people running these major companies are just normal people who happen to love their jobs and be very good at them. But it may be fair to note that it seems Steinberg has gone a little far in praising what appear to be purely capitalist motives on the part of Mr. Ross, sugarcoated with idealism and altruism.
Mr. Ross seems to think a little more idealistically about the television shows than one would expect from the president of a huge moneymaking entertainment business. He values the fact that “High School Musical” and many of Disney’s other recent programs “share an unapologetic emphasis on traditional life lessons” just as the Disney programming of his childhood did. He wants music to be embedded within the storyline; he wants each episode to demonstrate strategies of problem solving when issues arise between friends or with parents. As an example of his desire not to condescend to his audience, the Disney Channel website now features a space where children can create mash-ups of their favorite episodes and have control over how they turn out. Steinberg presents this as a measure of Ross’ connectedness to his audience, but it seems more like Ross is just picking up on the user-generated content trend that has become prevalent because of the internet and the accessibility of video editing software. Since Mr. Ross feels that “High School Musical” is truly about kids anywhere and not just about Americans, he has traveled all over the world to bring the movie to as many countries as possible. My reaction to this statement is questioning whether he is doing all that traveling just for the sake of spreading the good messages in the movie, or to make more money in the international entertainment markets. Ross’ influence on the nature of the channel can certainly be felt when looking back to the days before he entered the scene. His leadership helped bring the Disney Channel into its current 90 million homes from a bare 15 million, and lead it to practically knock all other children’s television channels out of the competition.

A Musical For Tweens Captures Its Audience - New York Times
Ben Sisario, February 8, 2006

    Ben Sisario examines the marketing strategy that went into Disney’s High School Musical and how it was able to engage its target audience with not-yet-standard techniques. The movie premiered on the Disney Channel on January 20th, and by February 8th it was already making news for its popularity. The soundtrack released with the movie reached top 10 of the Billboard charts, made 45 percent of its sales online through iTunes and had no radio airtime outside of Radio Disney’s station, and that was only in the first two weeks.
    Sisario quotes Gary Marsh, president of entertainment for Disney Channel Worldwide, as explaining the value of the story in its themes such as “express yourself, believe in yourself, celebrate your family, follow your dreams,” but it wasn’t just the optimism that made this movie and all of the other media associated with it into such a success. Because Disney’s presence exists across multiple forms of entertainment, it was able to use cross-platform advertising to build excitement about the movie before it was first aired. The show’s characters appeared on a New Years Eve show, the Disney channel played music videos from the movie’s songs “in heavy rotation,” and Disney even offered a free download of the song “Breaking Free” around the time of the premiere. After the movie aired for the first time, Disney directed viewers to a sing-along version online where they could download the lyrics. According to Sisario, the lyrics were downloaded 500,000 times in the first 24 hours. That’s successful cross-marketing.
    Disney capitalized on its integration of web content into the TV market, something that they’ve gotten very good at of late. They also benefited from the fact that the movie and soundtrack were released in the winter, specifically because of the holiday sales of iPods and iTunes gift certificates.
    Sisario sees this movie as the beginning of “a new musical phase,” referring to the previous cultivation of pop stars Brittney Spears, Christina Aguilera, and the members of ’N Sync. They are creating a new generation of pop icons following the success of Hillary Duff, which began with her TV show “Lizzy McGuire.” The most interesting element of the movie and album’s success is the fact that it did not rely on traditional radio or MTV for its publicity. They know that their audience, because of their age, is very comfortable with the internet and digital music, so they were able to make use of their own website and their relationship with Apple’s iTunes to set the movie up for success.