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Disney youngsters making musical magic
01/10/2007 4:09 AM, Reuters
Catherine Applefeld Olson
When trying to quantify the heat
surrounding the Disney Channel's hit series "Hannah Montana"
try this one on for size: The Walt Disney Records soundtrack to
the show, starring Miley Cyrus as a high school student by day,
pop star by night, has sold more than 1.9 million units since
its release last November. It has also placed eight singles on
the Billboard Hot 100.
Now Cyrus, the 14-year-old daughter of '90s country star
Billy Ray Cyrus, is scheduled to release a solo album in June
via another Disney label -- mainstream pop and rock specialist
Hollywood Records.
But in the ultimate testimony to the hotness of the Hannah
Montana character, Cyrus will get some help from her
platinum-selling alter ego. The album, tentatively titled "Best
of Both Worlds," will feature a mix of Cyrus originals as well
as tracks from season two of "Hannah Montana." And in the piece
de resistance, an accompanying tour is being discussed in which
Cyrus will open for, that's right, herself.
It's strategies like "Best of Both Worlds" that exemplify
how Cyrus is the new poster child for collaboration among
Disney-owned businesses.
"You can't dismiss the power and the strength of the
synergy opportunities that this company can provide," Disney
Records senior VP/GM Robert Marick says.
Not after last year. The Mouse House enjoyed a banner run
in 2006 by aggressively marketing its TV shows, films and
related soundtracks to consumers who were tuning into
Disney-owned TV Networks, watching Disney-owned movies,
listening to Disney-controlled radio outlets and surfing
Dinsey-operated Web sites. And its music division was one of
the biggest beneficiaries of that strategy.
The Buena Vista Music Group -- the umbrella group
comprising Walt Disney Records, Hollywood and country label
Lyric Street Records -- claimed the two best-selling albums of
2006: the "High School Musical" soundtrack from Disney Records,
which sold more than 3 million copies, and Rascal Flatts' "Me
and My Gang" from Lyric Street, which moved 2 million-plus
units.
Beyond "High School Musical" and "Hannah Montana" the
company also scored soundtrack hits with "Cheetah Girls 2"
(Disney; more than 1.2 million units), the companion album to
the movie about an R&B girl group; "Cars" (Disney; 749,000
units), the soundtrack to the animated Pixar film; and "Grey's
Anatomy, Volume 2" (Hollywood; 274,000 units), which contains
music from the top-rated ABC TV show. In all, Buena
Vista-distributed soundtracks sold more than 8 million units
last year.
A stress on synergy isn't new for Buena Vista. The company
has successfully worked the strategy since the days when Hilary Duff starred in "Lizzie McGuire" on the Disney Channel in 2002.
But it's stronger than ever, Disney executives say.
Disney Records alone almost tripled its current market
share in the last year and posted its best market share in more
than six years. The label's current share surged from a 0.96%
share in 2005 to 3.18% in 2006 -- a mark that one-upped the
peak of its Duff heyday in 2003, when it claimed a 2.2% share.
It also placed the label ahead of industry heavyweights Def
Jam, Epic Records, RCA Records and J Records in terms of
individual share in 2006.
Likewise, Lyric Street's market share almost doubled,
rising from 0.77% in 2005 to a 1.29% share.
The one exception was Hollywood, which dropped from a 1.26%
share in 2005 to a 0.98%.
Now comes the hard part: repeating that success in the year
ahead. The company wants to take formulas that worked in 2006
and reapply them in 2007. And not just with Cyrus.
A big test comes January 12, when Disney Channel premieres
"Jump In!," a made-for-TV musical about competitive double
Dutch that some company insiders are positioning as the urban
version of "High School Musical."
The movie stars Corbin Bleu, a curly-haired 17-year-old
singer/actor who had a supporting role in "High School
Musical." His career is being modeled after "High School
Musical" breakout star Vanessa Hudgens, who released her own
solo album through Hollywood last fall.
If "Jump In!," whose soundtrack was released January 9 from
Disney Records, connects in any way even remotely approximating
the success of "High School Musical," Bleu will be
well-positioned to release his own planned solo pop-crossover
album via Hollywood later this year.
The company is already banking that that will be the case.
Bleu's debut, "Another Side," is scheduled to hit stores April
17. So far the bet seems like a good one. "Push It to the
Limit," the Bleu-fronted lead single from "Jump In!," has sold
59,000 units in two weeks as an iTunes-exclusive prerelease EP
and currently tops the retailer's album chart.
Disney is using strategies similar to the ones employed
with "High School Musical" to lay the groundwork for "Jump In!"
The company is launching the movie in the same early-January
window it used to debut "High School Musical" last year. Music
from the movie has been available online at
http://www.disneychannel.com weeks ahead of its premiere, the
songs are in heavy rotation at Radio Disney, and the soundtrack
is coming out just ahead of the movie's release.
Whether any of these youngsters can connect with the
mainstream in the way Duff did when she shed her "Lizzie
McGuire" persona remains to be seen. Duff's 2003 debut,
"Metamorphosis," sold almost 4 million units.
By contrast, Hudgens, the first of the new bunch out of the
gates, is a work in progress. Her debut album, "V," has sold
300,000 units since its release last September.
Hollywood is also building an audience around another
Disney Channel-launched act, Aly & AJ. The girl duo has sold
more than 700,000 copies of its debut album, "Into the Rush,"
since August 2005. A follow-up is slated for later this year.
Reuters/Billboard
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