10 candles for Radio Disney - LA Times calendarlive, 7/24/06

[disneytim]

10 candles for Radio Disney

The network celebrates its anniversary with a pop blowout for the 10- year-old set. Jesse McCartney is the hit of the evening.

By Randy Lewis, Times Staff Writer

The guest of honor at Saturday's birthday bash in Anaheim had about as much fun as any 10-year-old could expect, but during the grand-scale party you had to wonder what the kid's parents were thinking. Or if they were even in the house.

The candles, the music and the revelry at the Arrowhead Pond were all about Radio Disney, commemorating its 10th year with a youth-pop blowout topped by Jesse McCartney and including brief sets from such Disney franchise favorites as the Cheetah Girls, Aly & AJ, Bowling for Soup, Everlife and "Hannah Montana" star Miley Cyrus.

Each delivered 15 or 20 minutes' worth of hits — songs that have been hammered home through every strata of Disney media — to the overwhelmingly female audience that nearly packed the Pond.

Full Story: 10 candles for Radio Disney

[ALIASd]

I took my 6 year-old niece to the show, she loves that Aly & AJ.
She's also seen Harry Connick Jr., Sugar Ray, Al Green and Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band so I feel the balance in the force is fair....

[Tommy2]

Article was true... but missed a LOT of the mindboggling things that occured that night. There was a lot of spin on this event from start to finish.

[Radiobarry]

Radio Disney is a very interesting phenomenon in the industry.

In most major "terrestrial radio" markets, it rarely even makes a blip as far as ratings go.

And at least in its first few years, the more important measure - revenue for commercial billing - the local Radio Disney outlet was always way at the bottom of the list, at least in Los Angeles - the number two market in the country.

But it found its niche advertising audience - for want of a better way of putting it - the "soccer Moms" (admittedly a generalization) with their suburban SUV's filled with kids.

And it has a very low "overhead" - since in most cities, the local station is nothing more than a computer in the back with all the programming coming out of one location. There are local promotions, of course, handled with the same group of entry-level types that do promotions for other radio stations in a cluster of usually 4 to 6 or more these days.

And now, of course, satellite radio, the Internet, podcasts, etc...

Just some observations.

--Barry

And from just reading the article, you would have thought that they could have managed a better overall show.