As a Disney (NYSE: DIS) shareholder, the High School Musical juggernaut is important to me. It means money for the company. It means a point of distinction for Disney that adds value to its content and differentiates it from other media businesses such as News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX). It means that tweens have something realistic to relate to that reflects their own days of breaking out in song while walking through school (okay, that was a joke).
But I was disappointed to hear that a reality show extension of the brand is having a tough time in the ratings. According to this blog post at The Hollywood Reporter, the show, called High School Musical: Get in the Picture, had the worst ratings on Monday night. It's some sort of competition show with a prize related to being in some sort of video in the Musical franchise.
I'm not sure of the specifics, but my main concern is that it couldn't offer any competition to CBS (NYSE: CBS) or General Electric's (NYSE: GE) NBC. Remember, Disney's big model is to take its content and spread it around to enhance the value of the company's other platforms. It's all about the synergy. Unfortunately, it didn't work this time. I honestly thought that ABC would have seen huge numbers from the kids on this one. It makes me wonder if Musical might be getting long in the tooth.
I sure hope not, because the theatrical version will be coming up this October. I want at least one more hot project to be derived from the franchise before it heads for the fad graveyard and becomes just another mention on a VH1 I Love the 00s program. Camp Rock will hopefully pick up the slack as Musical and Hannah Montana start to hit their respective death phases.
I'm not saying that the dismal ratings performance for this reality show means that Musical is done for just yet. All I'm saying is Disney has its hands full in terms of incubating more fads for shareholders.
I own shares of Disney and GE; positions can change at any time.
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