Shareholders of Disney (DIS) are looking forward to a little boost this

Sunday. The television series Lost is coming to an end, and there is a lot of celebratory buzz surrounding the send-off. I've never really sat down to watch the show (at least, not an entire episode all the way through), but I actually may watch the last moments of the final episode in the quizzical universe. Yes, the buzz has apparently sucked me in, too.

Yet, I have a thought to propose to the media industry: Should Disney charge viewers to see the finale?

It's all over the news. Media conglomerate Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube have entered into a deal for the former to supply content to the latter. Not for free, of course. There will be an ad-revenue-sharing model in place. The transaction calls for short-form content at first. This will be derived from ABC and ESPN properties. I assume that, if the short-form stuff works, then long-form stuff will follow pretty soon.

According to Julia Boorstin at CNBC, Disney will have full authority over the ad sales. That's good for shareholders of Disney. But YouTube wins a lot here, too. Google paid quite a bit of money to acquire the platform, and so far, monetization of the user-generated model has not been going smoothly.

YouTube needs to sign deals like these to legitimize its presence. It doesn't want to be known simply as the Cyberland of Copyright Infringement, a wicked, evil digital kingdom where content is stolen, used, and abused. That's how Viacom (NYSE: VIA) sees the site. It has engaged litigation against the company.

How can two of the most popular TV shows hurt investors? Easily.

"American Idol's" season 8 debut this week attracted more than 30 million viewers, making it the most watched TV show of the season, according to Nielsen Media Research. But as the Associated Press notes, that's not good news for Fox corporate parent News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) because it represents a viewership decline of 10 percent from the 2008 season.

Blame the Hollywood writers' strike and changing media habits. Couch potatoes across the U.S. got tired of watching rerun after rerun and decided to do other things such as play video games, watch movies and, heaven help us, read books. People got out of the television viewing habit that it took decades to develop. Getting people to come back to network TV is proving to be difficult.

It will be interesting to see if the audience returns to ABC's "Lost" when its newest season begins airing next week. The program's ratings began to decline last season as the plot lines got goofier. You can bet that the Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) has more than a passing interest in whether Jack convinces the other survivors to return to the island.

It is already that time of year again, when networks begin to align their fall schedules. Fans of cult favorites like Veronica Mars worry about their shows teetering on the bubble, writers and stars associated with top-20 shows may become a little bit greedy, and the nation wonders who, exactly, is still watching The Bachelor.

Late Wednesday, ABC, a division of Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS), announced 14 early confirmations for the 2007-2008 television season. Coming back for a second season are three breakout hits: Brothers & Sisters, Men in Trees, and Ugly Betty. Also on the list are Boston Legal, Desperate Housewives, Dancing With the Stars, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Grey's Anatomy, Jimmy Kimmel Live, Lost and, in fact, The Bachelor. This group joins three programs the network already committed to for the fall season: Supernanny, Wife Swap, and America's Funniest Home Videos (that's still on? News to me.)

Among the network's shows still awaiting a verdict are What About Brian, According to Jim, and George Lopez.

Beth Gaston Moon is an analyst at Schaeffer's Investment Research.

Walt Disney Co.'s (NYSE:DIS) has kept fans of ABC's hit show "Lost" waiting 13 weeks to learn about the fate of the most popular castaways since "Gilligans Island." Fans will debate forever about whether it was worth the wait. Investors have a dog in this fight too.

ABC is a really important business for Burbank, Calif.-based Disney. The company's broadcasting business, which includes ABC, accounted for $1.47 billion of the company's $8.78 billion in revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter. Of course, hits like "Grey's Anatomy" and "Desperate Housewives" also help as do DVD sales. None though have the fanatical following of "Lost."

Creating a hit TV series has always been difficult. It's even more so now given the huge number of choices that people have to amuse themselves. This puts ABC in the driver's seat with advertisers. For example, if a company really wants to buy a spot on "Lost." ABC can ask it to also buy spots on less popular shows. Most commercial time is solid in blocks though networks will sell a single spot on a program if the price is right.

Chief Executive Bob Iger deserves credit for spearheading the resurgence of ABC. Investors, though, shouldn't buy stock in entertainment companies because of one hit show. Disney also has plenty of other things going for it including ESPN, its theme parks and its emerging digital business.

People should think of "Lost" as a franchise. Get a load of the Lost stuff for sale at the ABC store. That's only the tip of the iceberg. You can bet that there will be more DVDS, t-shirt and coffee mugs. I wouldn't be surprised if there is a "Lost" movie at some point. All of this should be music to the ears of Disney investors.

Companies start to believe their own PR hype. Investors push a stock past logical limits. A company seems about to break down or break out. These are just a few things that can signal a stock with attitude. And... That attitude can be good or bad for the stock price since attitude always catches up with reality. At least on Wall Street that is.

Disney (NYSE:DIS) was up $0.60 (+1.70%) Thursday to $35.85 on news about a robot named Wall-E starting to appear in promotions for one of their computer animated movies scheduled for release in June 2008 . Or could it have been the announcement that Moody's may raise the company's debt rating because of of improving profits from operations? I'll bet it was the second one that got investors excited enough to give this stock a hefty boost in trading yesterday. Disney already has the highest possible S&P 5 STAR rating, and out of the 17 other analysts who cover the stock 4 give it a strong buy, 3 a moderate buy, 9 a hold, and one lone party pooper gives it a sell.

What other company has an end-to-end entertainment production, promotion, and delivery system like Disney? None that I know. Who else can promote that June 2008 animated feature release for months on several cable TV channels and on the ABC Network during Desperate Housewives and Lost? Then, after you've seen the movie, catch the ride at one of the Disney theme parks.

Other entertainment companies like General Electric (NYSE:GE), News Corp (NYSE:NWS), Tribune (NYSE: TRB), and even Time-Warner (NYSE:TWX) just can't put together the kind of grand-scale media leverage that Disney seems to have down to a paint-by-numbers science. If you're looking for a bullish hedged play on Disney, consider an April covered call around the 35 level. You might even catch a bit of this stock's small dividend and wait until you see what kind of perks they have for shareholders.

Vic Schiller is an analyst with attitude at Investors Observer.

DISCLOSURE NOTE: Mr. Schiller owns and/or controls diversified portfolios of long and short stock and option positions that may include holdings in companies he writes about.