‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ TV Show Is Latest Hope for Disney XD Channel
By BROOKS BARNES
LOS ANGELES — Rocket Raccoon and his fellow “Guardians of the Galaxy” are getting their own television series.
Expanding an effort to put its XD cable network on the ratings map, Disney will introduce an animated show next year based on its film “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which has taken in $324 million at the domestic box office, by far the No. 1 movie of the year to date.
LOS ANGELES — Rocket Raccoon and his fellow “Guardians of the Galaxy” are getting their own television series.
Expanding an effort to put its XD cable network on the ratings map, Disney will introduce an animated show next year based on its film “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which has taken in $324 million at the domestic box office, by far the No. 1 movie of the year to date.
The animated show, produced by Marvel, will join another prominent new series made by a corporate sibling for Disney XD: Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars Rebels” begins its run on Monday. “We have more exciting collaborations in the pipeline,” said Gary Marsh, president of DisneyChannels Worldwide.
The goal is to find Disney XD’s first true hit. While defending the lightly watched channel as an overall success, Mr. Marsh conceded that some programming efforts had fallen short. “I don’t think we have yet found our defining show,” he said.
Disney XD, now available in about 81 million American homes, represents a five-year effort by the world’s largest entertainment company to reassert itself as a cultural force among boys, particularly on television. Disney Channel, with its sparkly “Hannah Montana,” became a TV headquarters for preteenage girls. Could Disney XD, programmed with rowdier cartoons, be the male equivalent?
A few months after Disney XD arrived in 2009, the company spent $4 billion for the boy-centric Marvel Entertainment. Cars Land, a $450 million addition to Disneyland Resort in California, arrived in June 2012. Disney paid another $4 billion for Lucasfilm, the studio behind “Star Wars,” in the fall of that year.
At least for Disney XD, the going has been tough, a reflection of the rapidly changing way children watch television and the ever-increasing competition from video games and televised sports. The animated series “Tron: Uprising” was a particular disappointment for the channel, in part because it came on the heels of “Tron Legacy,” a heavily marketed action movie.
Disney XD has had better luck with shows like “Lab Rats,” about teenagers with bionic powers, and the self-explanatory “Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil.” New episodes of “Phineas and Ferb,” an established Disney Channel hit, moved to Disney XD in March. Another Disney Channel show, “Gravity Falls,” also moved.
Patti McTeague, a Disney spokeswoman, noted that, “despite headwinds,” the target audience for Disney XD — boys 6 to 11 — had increased 42 percent; she compared Nielsen data for recent months with ratings for the same period in 2009.
Ms. McTeague said that Disney XD’s programming strategy shifted last year to focus especially on boys 6 to 8, “an age when we see boys get especially keen on animation and adventure stories.” Ratings for that demographic slice, she said, increased 20 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period last year.
Even so, Disney XD has a tiny audience. Among boys 6 to 8 in the third quarter, for instance, the channel attracted an average of 44,000 viewers each day, according to Nielsen data. Competitors like Nickelodeon, owned by Viacom, attracted hundreds of thousands more.
Like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network — and notably unlike Disney Channel, which only sells limited sponsorships — Disney XD is supported by advertising. In other words, Disney has a serious business incentive to make the channel thrive. Advertisers annually spend about $1 billion on children’s television in the United States, analysts estimate, with Disney now taking a 10 percent nibble.
Starting a new children’s channel is grueling work, even if you are a global media conglomerate. Just ask Discovery Communications, which is abandoning the Hub, a struggling four-year-old network intended to sell Hasbro toys. The Hub will become Discovery Family starting Monday.
But with “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Disney has the year’s top-grossing movie on its side. In addition to the movie’s domestic box office tally, it sold $330.4 million in tickets overseas, where 30 Disney XD channels operate. A sequel is planned for 2017.
The animated series “Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy” will feature the same characters as the film: Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Star-Lord, Gamora and Drax. Disney declined to say whether the movie’s stars would participate in the series.
Stephen Wacker, Marvel’s vice president for current animation, emphasized in an interview that the series would strive to replicate the movie’s offbeat sense of humor. The show’s plot, he said, would pick up where the movie left off. The purple-skinned Thanos, a Marvel supervillain, will figure prominently.
Mr. Wacker said he hoped “Guardians” would reflect what he called “Phase 2” of Marvel Animation, which already supplies a programming block to Disney XD. “This is a new look for us,” he said. “We’ve learned what works on TV and what doesn’t.”
One lesson is “not to underestimate the audience,” Mr. Wacker said. “You can’t be afraid to go deeper, to explore stories and characters with some depth. This audience may be young, but it can spot a stinker a mile away.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/business/media/guardians-of-the-galaxy-tv-show-is-latest-hope-for-disney-xd-channel.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000
Expanding an effort to put its XD cable network on the ratings map, Disney will introduce an animated show next year based on its film “Guardians of the Galaxy,” which has taken in $324 million at the domestic box office, by far the No. 1 movie of the year to date.
The animated show, produced by Marvel, will join another prominent new series made by a corporate sibling for Disney XD: Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars Rebels” begins its run on Monday. “We have more exciting collaborations in the pipeline,” said Gary Marsh, president of DisneyChannels Worldwide.
The goal is to find Disney XD’s first true hit. While defending the lightly watched channel as an overall success, Mr. Marsh conceded that some programming efforts had fallen short. “I don’t think we have yet found our defining show,” he said.
Disney XD, now available in about 81 million American homes, represents a five-year effort by the world’s largest entertainment company to reassert itself as a cultural force among boys, particularly on television. Disney Channel, with its sparkly “Hannah Montana,” became a TV headquarters for preteenage girls. Could Disney XD, programmed with rowdier cartoons, be the male equivalent?
A few months after Disney XD arrived in 2009, the company spent $4 billion for the boy-centric Marvel Entertainment. Cars Land, a $450 million addition to Disneyland Resort in California, arrived in June 2012. Disney paid another $4 billion for Lucasfilm, the studio behind “Star Wars,” in the fall of that year.
At least for Disney XD, the going has been tough, a reflection of the rapidly changing way children watch television and the ever-increasing competition from video games and televised sports. The animated series “Tron: Uprising” was a particular disappointment for the channel, in part because it came on the heels of “Tron Legacy,” a heavily marketed action movie.
Disney XD has had better luck with shows like “Lab Rats,” about teenagers with bionic powers, and the self-explanatory “Kick Buttowski: Suburban Daredevil.” New episodes of “Phineas and Ferb,” an established Disney Channel hit, moved to Disney XD in March. Another Disney Channel show, “Gravity Falls,” also moved.
Patti McTeague, a Disney spokeswoman, noted that, “despite headwinds,” the target audience for Disney XD — boys 6 to 11 — had increased 42 percent; she compared Nielsen data for recent months with ratings for the same period in 2009.
Ms. McTeague said that Disney XD’s programming strategy shifted last year to focus especially on boys 6 to 8, “an age when we see boys get especially keen on animation and adventure stories.” Ratings for that demographic slice, she said, increased 20 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period last year.
Even so, Disney XD has a tiny audience. Among boys 6 to 8 in the third quarter, for instance, the channel attracted an average of 44,000 viewers each day, according to Nielsen data. Competitors like Nickelodeon, owned by Viacom, attracted hundreds of thousands more.
Like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network — and notably unlike Disney Channel, which only sells limited sponsorships — Disney XD is supported by advertising. In other words, Disney has a serious business incentive to make the channel thrive. Advertisers annually spend about $1 billion on children’s television in the United States, analysts estimate, with Disney now taking a 10 percent nibble.
Starting a new children’s channel is grueling work, even if you are a global media conglomerate. Just ask Discovery Communications, which is abandoning the Hub, a struggling four-year-old network intended to sell Hasbro toys. The Hub will become Discovery Family starting Monday.
But with “Guardians of the Galaxy,” Disney has the year’s top-grossing movie on its side. In addition to the movie’s domestic box office tally, it sold $330.4 million in tickets overseas, where 30 Disney XD channels operate. A sequel is planned for 2017.
The animated series “Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy” will feature the same characters as the film: Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Star-Lord, Gamora and Drax. Disney declined to say whether the movie’s stars would participate in the series.
Stephen Wacker, Marvel’s vice president for current animation, emphasized in an interview that the series would strive to replicate the movie’s offbeat sense of humor. The show’s plot, he said, would pick up where the movie left off. The purple-skinned Thanos, a Marvel supervillain, will figure prominently.
Mr. Wacker said he hoped “Guardians” would reflect what he called “Phase 2” of Marvel Animation, which already supplies a programming block to Disney XD. “This is a new look for us,” he said. “We’ve learned what works on TV and what doesn’t.”
One lesson is “not to underestimate the audience,” Mr. Wacker said. “You can’t be afraid to go deeper, to explore stories and characters with some depth. This audience may be young, but it can spot a stinker a mile away.”
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/11/business/media/guardians-of-the-galaxy-tv-show-is-latest-hope-for-disney-xd-channel.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000