HEY, YOUNG SPENDER

MIKE REYNOLDS

Cable reaches out to target tricky tweens They're fickle and faddish. They're gaining self-awareness, yet they experience heavy peer pressure. They're finding out how they fit into the future. They're feeling new emotions and growing physically. They're part little kid, part adolescent.

They are tweens, the 9-14-year-old set that has become an increasing focal point of American marketers and television executives, particularly cable programmers.

"The kids' market ebbs and flows." says Mike Goodman, an analyst at The Yankee Group. "For a while there was a lot of emphasis on the pre-kindergarten group. Then, it was the 6-8-year-olds. Now, more attention seems to have shifted to kids 9-14, the ones who are coming of age."

And with good reason. Tweens pack an economic punch. According to the "Marketing to Kids Report," the 25 million kids ages 8-12 spend $9 billion annually. Those dollars, however, don't tell the whole story.

"These kids don't work, but they have allowances," says Shelly Hirsch, chairman of Summit Media, a media buying outfit and distributor of kids' programming. "They have money to spend on things they want. But they also influence their parents' purchasing decisions on everything from clothing to food. And the older kids, the 13-14-year-olds, they are not that far away from driving. The autos are looking at this group."

These kids are looking at a lot of different things, which makes them an elusive quarry for advertisers and programmers alike. This is a fragmented group in terms of media because some are still watching kids' stuff, while others are tuning into wrestling, MTV or some of the broadcasters' lineups.

"These kids are watching Sabrina: The Teenage Witch, which is targeted to them," says Donna Speciale, supervising director of national broadcast at MediaCom. "But no doubt there are a lot of tween girls watching Dawson's Creek, just as the kids a few years back did with Beverly Hills 90210. I'm sure there are a lot of tweens watching Dark Angel this year."

Then, there are other interests.

"Childhood has become a lot shorter and more complicated," says Ed Martin, programming editor at industry publication The Myers Report. "Kids are much more sophisticated than they were 20 to 30 years ago. Back in the day, I was content with a Marvel comic book. Now kids have all these video games, CD-ROMs. How many 8-, 9-, 10- and 11-year-olds prefer to turn on a PlayStation instead of clicking through the channels? Then, there is the Internet. Cable and the broadcasters have to compete against the Web, as well."

Or, make it enhance their TV platforms.

"For many parts of the TV world, an integrated Web strategy is not that important," says Goodman. "For these kids, it really is because they've grown up with the Internet. The networks should have a dual strategy. Disney, Cartoon, Nickelodeon and Fox, they are all trying to drive traffic back and forth between the TV screen and the PC."

Strong competition It is against this backdrop, not to mention dedicated kids' programming from ABC, NBC, The WB, Fox Kids Network and UPN, that cable networks are competing for tween eyeballs.

Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Fox Family Channel and Disney Channel all extol various Nielsen virtues in terms of audience achievements and strides made against the 9-14 demo, numbers that are not lost on Madison Avenue.

"With the cooling of Pokemon and Batman Beyond on WB and slippage on UPN and Fox Kids," says Speciale, "cable is up, and broadcast is down with kids overall. And things skew largely the same way for tweens."

For Fox Family Channel and Disney Channel, targeting tweens was a strategic decision, while executives at Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network maintain their appeal with this group is an outgrowth of their channels' overall programming philosophies.

"It's interesting. We've always had this group watching us long before Madison Avenue started paying more attention to them over the last few years," says Cyma Zarghami, VP/GM of Nickelodeon, which leads the way among tweens on a total-day basis, delivering a 1.83 rating, translating into 324,000 viewers. "In fact, we're still gathering information about them to make sure that we stay in tune with the trends and the attitudes."

Zarghami says this ongoing research is more for marketing purposes than program development.

"We sell 2-11, but our audience delivery is 2-14. We really don't identify or develop shows specifically for the 6-8 or 9-14 groups. When we hit the nail on the head, we get both," she says, noting that recently introduced series Pelswick and As Told By Ginger cross both groups.

"Pelswick and Ginger have aspirational appeal to younger children who want to see what it's like when they get older, as well as to kids in junior high who are experiencing many of the same things the characters are encountering," says Zarghami. "Tweens have one foot in one world and one in the other. They are intrigued by things happening to older kids, but they are still interested in being kids. That's a fine line we have to walk as a programmer.

Cartoon Network EVP Tim Hall agrees tweens are a hard group to figure out.

"It's a tough market to reach, very fickle," he says. "Kids of that age have dual personalities. In school, it may be un-hip to say you watch a show. But our research says a lot of tweens are still watching Scooby Doo."

The most popular tween stuff for Cartoon, which averaged a 2.5 rating during primetime among this group during the third quarter, runs during its Toonami action-adventure block from 4-7 p.m. This Japanese anime programming, averaging a 2.4 rating Monday-Friday, is highlighted by Dragonball Z, which attracted a record 1 million tween boys for its Nov. 1 episode. The Toonami block skews much more heavily toward tween boys, who constitute 78% of the audience in garnering an average 3,3 rating among this demo. Across all programming on the network, boys represent 66% of tweens, versus 34% for girls.

Hall says the most encouraging thing for the network is that this audience has grown organically.

"Cartoon is a creator-driven network," he says. "We try not to make the shows too young; it's all about being authentic. Like our core group of kids 6-11, tweens are watching Powerpuff Girls, Dexter's Laboratory and Courage The Cowardly Dog. Like classic cartoons, Bugs Bunny in his prime, the humor works on various levels for little kids, tweens and adults. Our competitors are doing a lot of laborious research on how to reach the tweens audience. We believe you have to have market authenticity. They're smart. If you target too hard, too overtly, you may turn them off."

Disney Channel GM Rich Ross doesn't necessarily agree with that premise.

"Our shows look at things that impact kids: relationships, peer pressures, family expectations," he says. "They see this as programming `just for us.'"

Ross says Disney Channel began mining this market about three years ago at a time when networks were putting a lot of resources against the younger kids, 2-5, and Cartoon and Nick were battling for 6-8 year olds with animation. Meanwhile, MTV and networks such as The WB with Felicity and Dawson's Creek were getting a lot of young teenagers.

"We were looking for a way to reach the kids older than 6-8 but who weren't quite fully teenagers, ages 15-17, yet," he says, noting that the push began in earnest with "Zoog Disney," a weekend afternoon franchise that has since expanded to weekdays.

Disney has developed a number of "very age- and experienced-oriented" shows, such as The Jersey, So Weird, The Famous Jett Jackson and Even Stevens, all centering on young teenage characters.

Disney Channel also has pushed into reality series, beginning with Bug Juice, recounting camp experiences, and Totally Circus, which got behind the scenes of life under the big top. Next up: the second installment of this series, Totally Hoops, which follows a girls 13-14-year-old AAU team. The series bows in January.

"Music and sports have been key drivers for our series," says Ross. "The third leg of the stool is friendship and stories/series that relate to that. Kids 9-14 like stories they can see themselves in and identify with. If the characters are slightly older, they know they are going to be there soon."

What do they watch? Series aside, films have been the top-drawing card for tweens on Disney's dial. Since January 2000, Disney Channel is No. 1 with kids 9-14 in all of cable during primetime, averaging a 2.9 rating, year-to-date through Oct. 31.

"Movies seven days a week are the driving force behind this," says Ross. "Our original movie franchise certainly generates the numbers."

With films opening across a weekend, the originals "come nicely over a couple of weeks."

There are eight airings during a two-week burst before the films move into a rotation in which they are screened about 15 times a year.

"Tweens are taking in multiple viewings of the originals and some of the acquired films as well," explains Ross.

Some of the top films this year were Up, Up and Away, Quints and Mom's Got a Date with a Vampire.

Music has also struck a chord with tweens.

"Music was the fuse that lit the whole fire," says Ross. "We put `N Sync on three years ago, when no one had heard them. We've had Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys and Christina Aguilera. All of them credit Disney Channel for helping their careers take off."

Fox Family Channel also has aggressively aimed its programming at tweens.

"We've been going after this group since the network was re-launched more than three years ago," says Joel Andryc, EVP-kids programming and development, Fox Family Channel and Fox Kids Network. "Nickelodeon, Cartoon and Disney were all targeting kids 6-11. Then, there were all the older kids who were still too young for MTV. So we saw this opportunity with tweens and have been pursuing it ever since."

To date, music has been Fox Family's primary calling card with the group.

Great Pretenders is a half-hour game show hosted by RCA vocal trio Wild Orchid, offering fans the lip-synching opportunity to emulate their favorite acts.

The Hi-Fi Room mixes dance moves and trivia with in-studio performances and interviews with fast-rising and established acts, while S Club 7 follows the weekly adventures of a seven-member British band looking for their big break in Tinseltown. The network also has quarterly concert specials on tap with the likes of Mandy Moore, Samantha Mumba, Pink and artists from Bad Boy Entertainment.

"Music tends to attract a wider girl audience, particularly the pop genre. Boys 9-11 tend to go away from music a bit or are into heavy metal or rock," says Andryc, pegging Fox Family's tween music audience at about 60% girls/40% boys. Overall, Fox Family's third-quarter daytime ratings among tweens grew 122% to a 0.8 average.

Music programming is also popular on Nickelodeon.

"Clearly, the emergence of the boy bands has made this much bigger for tweens, especially girls. We do U Pick Nick (a video show in which kids select the clips), and the Baja Men and Aaron Carter were all over our air this summer," says Zarghami, who acknowledges Nickelodeon does hit up against another Viacom property reaching tweens. "Teens are obviously an active audience for MTV, and Total Request Live is popular with tweens. But tweens spend a lot of time in the kids world."

Competitors and Madison Avenue warn, however, that a reliance on music can be dangerous.

"There are a lot of one-hit wonders," says MediaCom's Speciale. "Stars come and go quickly with kids of this age."

Adds Cartoon's Hall: "In pursuing pop, you always hope to find the next Britney Spears. We also think we can keep viewers as they get older and grow out of a particular pop cycle. There is always a place for great animation."

Reality check Fox Family and Andryc recognize that cultural tides do change quickly and are ramping up series production against this demo. The network recently introduced Real Scary Stories, a reality-based, live-action series of paranormal experiences witnessed by kids all over the country, and The Zack Files, based on the book series by Dan Greenburg, which tracks the weird stuff that happens to this young teen.

Fox Family is also looking to things a step further with Edgemont, a teen soap opera bowing Jan. 13 that focuses on sophomores and juniors who, Andryc says, will tread into "the dynamics of boyfriends and girlfriends, peer pressure, cliques, relationships and social isolation." He says the show will explore such "key issues as premarital sex and drinking, things that kids have to deal with on a day in/day out basis."

He emphasizes the show focuses on the emotional, not the physical.

"This is not the gratuitous stuff on Dawson's Creek," Andryc says. "It's not kids sleeping with teachers. For the most part, that's not real life."

The show will be complemented by materials from the Kaiser Family Foundation and Seventeen magazine, which is owned by Cable World parent Primedia.

"This is not only entertaining, but educational," says Andryc. "This is very reflective, very real stuff. Not the sugar-coated worlds we're seeing elsewhere."

Asked to respond to the perception that Disney Channel fare is not reflective of modern-day realities, Ross says: "Our programming is totally appropriate for this age group. We address issues like eating disorders and how kids deal with added freedom and the responsibilities that go with that. Drugs and guns. Those are only a small percentage of what it's like for most kids."

"We're sensitive to parental concerns about programming. We're not going to put on some of the stuff you see on HBO," he adds. "The WB puts up an advisory before some of their shows. If I'm a kid of that age and a sign goes up that says, `Don't look,' I look."

Looking ahead, Disney Channel will broaden its palette next year, scheduling animated series aimed at this group.

"We've done movies, music, sports, comedies, dramas and reality series. Animation is the final piece in the puzzle," says Ross, adding that "kids coming-of-age stories can work just as well with animation as with live-action, as long as kids see themselves in the show." Ross says the animated series will bow in either late summer, or early fall.

With kids of this age, however, it's very difficult to gauge what stage of emotional development they are in.

"Kids say one thing with their friends at school, in the cafeteria, at the mall or on the playground," says Zarghami. "Then, they come home and act differently. Our research shows a lot of kids that age are still watching Rugrats."

She points to Caitlin's Way, a series centering on a teen-ager trying to fit into a new life and surroundings in Montana (see sidebar), as a perfect example of a show that works on different levels for tweens.