Coda
by Staff -- Multichannel News, 6/1/2009 2:00:00 AM
Disney XD Sports New Shows
New York — With athletics playing a key role in the lives of its target audience, Disney XD is ramping up its sports-oriented fare.
Disney XD, in conjunction with sister service ESPN, on June 8 will unveil Next X, a short-form reality series tied to the sports programmer’s X Games franchise. It will also debut a live-action comedy series, Zeke and Luther, centering on skateboarding buddies.
The programming will join the network as the service looks to fortify its Monday night lineup that features original series Aaron Stone and Disney Channel animated transplant Phineas and Ferb.
“Sports are important to kids and our audience. And like the rest of Disney XD programming, Next X is about the journey and their aspirations,” said Paul DeBenedittis, senior vice president, programming strategy, Disney Channels Worldwide.
(The network, rechristened from the Toon Disney brand in February, targets kids 6 to 14, especially boys.)
Next X spotlights five up-and-coming BMX competitors and skateboarders ages 9 to 12, mentored by top professionals. The eight-part, short-form series culminates in August with a TV and online special, capturing the amateurs’ VIP experience at X Games 15 in Los Angeles from July 30 through Aug. 2.
DeBenedittis said Disney XD would run interstitial highlights from X Games 15, and “We hope to continue our sports development with the Next X equivalent from the Winter X Games.”
Next X marks Disney XD’s second collaboration with ESPN, as the network airs SportsCenter High 5, which features great plays and bloopers from the prior week.
Though skateboarding is integral to its storyline, DeBenedittis said Zeke and Luther is more about friendship and how kids face the fun and trials posed by teen years. Disney XD has ordered 21 half-hour installments of the show.
Buoyed by Phineas and Ferb and Aaron Stone, for which the network has already ordered a second season, Disney XD has rung up a 4% rise in total viewers to 275,000 (6 a.m. to midnight) since its Feb. 13 launch through May 21. The service has scored a 27% gain among kids 6 to 14 (117,000 of those watchers) and 19% advance with boys of that age (72,000).
Among the 9-to-14 set, Disney XD was up 48% (68,000) and 50% among tween boys (45,000).
— Mike Reynolds
UEFA Final Kicks Record Ratings
Bristol. Conn. — ESPN’s last UEFA Champions League final went out in record Nielsen fashion.
The network’s May 27 telecast of FC Barcelona’s 2-0 win over defending champion Manchester United averaged a 1.1 rating, 1.07 million homes and 1.43 million viewers, making it the highest-rated and most-watched UEFA telecast in U.S. cable history, per Nielsen Media Research.
The previous UEFA record was the 2008 Champions League final on ESPN2, which netted a 0.8 rating, 798,000 homes and 1.09 million viewers for Man U’s penalty kick-triumph over Chelsea.
Last week’s match from Stadio Olimpico in Rome also became ESPN Deportes’ most-watched telecast ever with a 9.9 Hispanic coverage rating and 474,000 Hispanic homes. The contest was the Spanish-language network’s second-highest-rated telecast ever, trailing the 10.1 for the Euro 2008 Final, won by Spain over Germany.
For all of Spanish-language cable, the only bigger rating and audience thus far in 2009 was an Interliga game between the Chivas and America sides on Fox Sports en Español on Jan. 3, which averaged a 12.0 rating and 613,000 Hispanic households.
The Champions League final marks the end of a 15-year run on ESPN networks. Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports USA outbid the total sports network for the rights to the prestigious club tournament in 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12.
— Mike Reynolds
Oxygen, Crunch: 'Dance’ Partners
New York — Oxygen Media will invite people in five cities to shake their groove thing in an effort to lose weight as part of its nationwide tour to promote its June dance/weight-loss reality series Dance Your Ass Off.
Fitness chain Crunch will partner with Oxygen for the tour, which will feature live dance performances, free giveaways and dance lessons. Consumers attending tour stops in Atlanta, Charlotte, New York, Orlando and Chicago will be invited to dance with professional dancers on a giant stage shaped as a scale, as well as to create a customized video of themselves performing the official DYAO dance and generate their own DYAO animated dancer. Trainers from Crunch will also be on location in New York and Chicago.
“We are excited to be able to bring such a fun show experience directly to the consumer,” said Jane Olson, senior vice president of marketing and brand strategy for Oxygen Media, in a statement.
— R. Thomas Umstead
Back in the Big Easy
Washington — The cable industry’s weeklong conglomeration of events in fall 2010 is scheduled to take place in New Orleans.
Set for the week of Oct. 17, Cable Connection Fall 2010, organized under the aegis of the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, is to comprise the CTAM Summit, SCTE’s Cable-Tec Expo, the NAMIC Annual Conference, the Kaitz Annual Dinner and other events.
NCTA director of media relations Joy Sims confirmed that New Orleans will be the expected host city and said dates and additional information for Cable Connection Fall 2010 will be announced later in June.
The NCTA’s Cable Show 2008 was held in the Big Easy.
— Todd Spangler
Arris Offers Ops Support
Suwanee, Ga. — Arris is offering to help cable operators prepare applications for the broadband stimulus funds through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Utilities Service program.
The $800 billion American Reinvestment and Recovery Act includes provisions to encourage cable operators to apply for grants, loans and guarantees to assist them in deploying broadband access to “unserved” and “underserved” communities.
Arris said its product lineup enables broadband operators to build wireline and wireless infrastructures and support broadband services that “fully meet the requirements and intent of the ARRA’s broadband provisions.”
— Todd Spangler
TV Guide Net Stake Sold
Santa Monica, Calif. — Lions-gate said it will sell a 49% stake in TV Guide Network — which it recently acquired from Macrovision Solutions — to JPMorgan Chase’s private equity arm and TV producer Allen Shapiro for about $123 million in cash.
Under terms of the deal, One Equity Partners, the global private equity investment arm of JPMorgan Chase, becomes a 49% equity partner in Lionsgate’s TV Guide Network and TVGuide.com.
— Todd Spangler
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