Disney World

Charter Communications, Inc. announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Disney-ABC Domestic Television to launch a subscription video on demand (SVOD) entertainment service featuring classic and contemporary movies and animated shorts from The Walt Disney Studios.

Disney Family Movies features a dozen Disney movies and animated shorts. Titles will remain in rotation for about a month, with new titles added weekly. The rotating titles will have broad appeal, targeting children, teens, adults, and families. Initially, Disney Family Movies includes Honey, I Shrunk the Kids; Air Buddies; Disney Princess Enchanted Tales: Follow Your Dreams; Tarzan & Jane; Geppetto and others.

“Charter is pleased to have developed this service with Disney-ABC Domestic Television and serve as their launch partner on this exciting new venture,” said Maria Rothschild, Senior Director of Video Product Management for Charter. “Disney Family Movies is entertainment the whole family can enjoy together and a great value for our customers. With Disney Family Movies, in addition to our VOD movie line up of new releases, blockbusters, free movies, and high definition selections, Charter is the place for movies on television.”

“We are delighted to be offering a family-friendly entertainment service featuring universally treasured Disney titles to Charter’s customers,” added Dan Cohen, executive vice president, pay television and interactive media, Disney-ABC Domestic Television. “This unique Disney offering is the first of its kind, generating an innovative use of the SVOD technology.”

His voice is associated with the sounds of Disney’s hit “High School Musical,” but 26-year-old Drew Seeley has other aspirations outside of high school.

Seeley began singing and acting at age 11 while living in Canada. He got a lucky break recording for a yet-to-be released Disney project about students navigating their way through the halls of high school set to music. Seeley’s recordings were blended with Zac Efron, who played Troy in the movie, to create the finished version.

“You always hope that everything you do is not a waste of time,” said Seeley. “It didn’t immediately open doors.”

The movie’s success led to a couple sequels, an ice tour and a concert series. For Seeley, it also allowed him the chance to focus on his own music. On Monday, his voice can be heard on the San Mateo County fairgrounds as he performs on Kids’ Day.

Seeley will bring a mix of his work with Disney and personal songs into the mix while performing while gauging the crowd to decide what’s going to get the audience excited. Just having the opportunity to tour is not lost on Seeley who remembers working as a food runner only a year and a half ago.

As a result, his voice can be heard on seven Disney CDs. Additionally, he co-wrote “Get’cha Head in the Game,” a song for High School Musical, with Ray and Greg Cham. The song earned a 2006 Emmy nominee for outstanding original music. Seeley also took over the role of Troy in the “High School Musical: The Concert,” tour while Efron was shooting “Hairspray.”

The stadium tour put Seeley before crowds of up to 60,000 per show.

Fairs give Seeley a chance to create a more intimate performance. He plans to keep it high energy. If attendees are lucky, Seeley may throw in a song or two from the upcoming movie “Another Cinderella Story,” in which he plays Prince Charming alongside Selena Gomez. Seeley sings, acts and dances for the movie due out in September. The soundtrack, however, will hit airwaves later this month.

Drew Seeley will perform at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 11 on the main stage. Concerts are included in fair admission price. Premiere seating is available for an additional charge. On Kids’ Day, all kids 12 and under get into the fair for free. For more information visit www.sanmateocountyfair.com. For more information on Seeley visit www.drewseeleystreetteam.com.

The Walt Disney Co. is closing down all three McDonald’s outlets at its Disneyland resort in Anaheim, Calif., on Sept. 2 as part of a planned refurbishment, the company said.

Disney said the move is not related to its push, announced in 2006, to promote healthier eating choices for children at restaurants at its parks.

“We make enhancements throughout the park on a regular basis,” Disneyland spokeswoman Lisa Haines said Friday. “We’ll continue to offer guests a wide variety of food choices.”Disney announced its healthy food guidelines the same year it wrapped up a cross-promotional relationship with McDonald’s Corp., with the last joint marketing campaigns on “Cars” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.”

There is still a McDonald’s outlet in each of Disney’s four theme parks in Orlando, Fla., and one at Disneyland Resort Paris, the company said.

Two years ago, Disney announced a plan to eliminate added trans fats from food served at its parks by the end of 2007, and the company said it had met that goal.On Monday, the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest said 93 percent of kids’ meals at 13 major restaurant chains, including McDonald’s, had too many calories.

Wayne Hampton, the coordinator of the Disney Career Start Program, will arrive in Selma on Tuesday to discuss employing youth from the Black Belt at Disney World, according to District Attorney Michael Jackson.

The program is for students who have finished high school or who have received their GEDs within the last 48 months to work for a semester at the Walt Disney World Resort in Florida.

The program is open to the public, according to Jackson, who has worked on the program with state Rep. Yusuf Salaam. The reception and program begin at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Striplin Performing Arts Center.

“Our goal is to give some young adults in the Black Belt some jobs, education and a different world experience that will be invaluable to them when they come back to the Black Belt,” the district attorney said.

Hampton said the positions for the fall are filled, but the program will need students who can begin in January and work until May.

Participants may work indoors and outdoors, depending on the role at Disney World. Those hired will receive an hourly rate of pay, ranging from $6.79 to $8.14 an hour, depending on the role they are selected for. Generally, depending on the work, the workers will be scheduled 30 to 50 hours a week.

The participants will live in the program’s housing complex. The information on www.disneycareerstart.com states one-to four-bedroom apartments are available, with two program participants in each bedroom. Costs of the apartments range from $75 to $97 per week, and the program will deduct the rent automatically from the paycheck. There is also a one-time $75.50 program assessment and activities fee due if the person is accepted.

Some of the available jobs include quick service food and beverage from outdoor carts or indoor restaurants; quick service food and beverage at the Magic Kingdom, which requires extended shifts ; custodial work around the park; merchandise, which may include demonstrating and selling merchandise in indoor and outdoor areas; attractions, which means working at one or more of the rides or theater shows; full-service food and beverage in restaurants; issuing costumes to fellow cast members; and working as a life guard.

The Walt Disney Company has completed an investment of Rs 118 crore in UTV Global Broadcasting Ltd (UGBL) for a 15 per cent stake, announced in February 2008. UGBL has allocated 3,00,000 equity shares to The Walt Disney Company (Southeast Asia) Pte Ltd.

At the same time UTV Software Communications Ltd (UTV), has been allotted 15,00,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each of UGBL, constituting 75 per cent of the paid up share capital of the company, for a aggregate consideration of Rs 240 crore, making UGBL a subsidiary of UTV. The remaining 10 per cent continues to be held by Ronnie Screwvala’s Promoter Group.

UGBL is the parent company for its two wholly owned subsidiaries that have launched four channels in six months between September 2007 – March 2008. First is the youth GEC that houses the youth brand Bindass, launched in September 2008. Bindass Movies is another innovative offering sharply targeted at Indian youth.

Second is UTV Entertainment Television, that houses World Movies, the only 24 hour channel dedicated to movies from around the globe. Launched in February 2008, UTV Movies, is the 24-hour premium Hindi movie channel, that has the lineage of UTV Motion Pictures, one of the largest Hindi movie studios in India

With the completion of this investment, Disney has completed 32.1 per cent acquisition in parent UTV Software Communications and 15 per cent in the broadcast arm UGBL at a total out lay of Rs 818.3 crore.

UTV Software Communications has also exercised its right to convert its debt funding in UGBL into equity shares of UGBL.

For Peter Wiley, the Walt Disney Co.’s European head of legal, these are interesting times. His employer, one of the most iconic companies in the world, is currently engaged in a drive to expand internationally and take the House of Mouse into the digital age. Not that there is any shortage of lawyers to help. Disney maintains one of the largest legal teams in the world with 350 lawyers companywide. The team is overseen in the U.S. by Alan Braverman, one of the country’s most high-profile and best-paid general counsel.

Wiley’s part of the empire is also significant: he oversees a 32-lawyer team, 20 of whom are based in London. He certainly retains his enthusiasm for the job, commenting: “I was attracted to the in-house scene from my early days in private practice. There is a more holistic view — when you understand the business through from start to finish, you can really add value to the company.”

Since Wiley’s arrival at Disney, the legal function has enjoyed measured growth internationally, keeping pace with the progress of the entertainment company as a whole.

After a period of stability in Disney’s U.K. legal team, the company is moving to expand its team abroad.

“At the moment, one of our main priorities is international growth,” says Wiley. “In order to grow we have to be strong in the international market and not just in the U.S. We are particularly focused on emerging markets, such as Russia, India and China, and recently recruited our first in-house lawyer in Moscow.”

Further testament to Disney’s expansion was the development of the Hong Kong Disneyland resort — a joint venture with the nation’s government — which was officially opened in September 2005, making it the third major Disney resort outside of the U.S. and the second in the emerging Asian market.

However, the company’s growth is not confined to emerging market expansion. Disney completed the acquisition of Pixar Animation Studios in 2006 and online gaming experience Club Penguin in 2007.

Wiley explains that his team has had to embrace different forms of content delivery, such as video on demand, as part of its continued growth and its changing role as a legal function.

He says: “Boundaries are really breaking down in terms of different forms of digital delivery of media content. The business models are changing now and we need to adjust our legal skills as business models develop.”

Given this backdrop of digital revolution, Disney has been trying to uphold its intellectual property rights in the battle against piracy.

Wiley says that the company is keen to avoid recent troubles that have plagued the music industry. He says: “One of the major challenges to the business is Internet-based piracy. It has hit the music industry very hard and is obviously a big issue for the film industry.

“However, anti-piracy initiatives are often controversial; not least in the relationship between data protection and copyright enforcement.”

The company has so far focused its large legal team mainly within its business divisions rather than building a big, centralized team.

Wiley says: “Seventy-five percent of the Europe, Middle East and Afria (EMEA) legal team sit with specific lines of business and are defacto dedicated. There is a small central group, but the vast majority of the group are responsible for specific business units regionally.”

He adds: “The lawyers for areas of the business such as the Disney Channel, for example, are physically located with business units. We deliberately avoid using a large, centralised legal function. It destroys the essential closeness to the business.”

An integral part of the Disney in-house ethos is communication. As well as the legal function working closely with the business, the worldwide lawyers form a coordinated network so that they can work together on common issues.

Wiley explains: “Worldwide business functions have close business relationships with lawyers in similar functions across the world. It is important that information and knowledge is shared on a worldwide basis and not just in EMEA, and that there is a high degree of coordination in the legal function.”

He adds: “Some specialist functions are run globally, for example trademark issues — because trademark registrations are determined on a global basis — and also antitrust where we need a worldwide perspective. We talk to each other and discuss issues consistently on a worldwide basis.”

With Disney requiring its lawyers to interact closely with the commercial side of the company as well as being able to offer assistance to their legal colleagues, it is essential that recruitment for the team is carried out carefully.

Wiley says: “We place a high value on strong technical ability. We are a large legal department with a culture of legal excellence and newcomers have to be able to survive in that environment as well as speak the language of a media business.”

However, like other general counsel, one of Wiley’s main concerns is meeting the ambitions of his team. He says: “Career development is always a challenge for in-housers, so we try to move people around. We are in the process of transferring a lawyer in our Madrid office to London and we recently transferred an American lawyer from Japan to London.”

Alongside the in-house team, the company uses a range of law firms to conduct more specialist business. Although Disney operates no formal panel, Clifford Chance, Bird & Bird, Olswang, Bevan Brittan and SJ Berwin are among the firms regularly used in the U.K. and Europe.

“In our U.K. legal function we tend to only outsource specialized work,” Wiley says. “Bread-and-butter business advice, we do in-house. We act very much like a small firm.

“We outsource more outside of the U.K. across the European Union and use a relatively large number of firms for special tasks. We spread our instructions around. I would describe it as horses for courses. We tend to use individuals that we know.”

With the entertainment company continuing to perform well despite the economic downturn — the company recently reported a 9 percent hike in profits for the third quarter — Wiley is looking forward to the future.

“The focus on international expansion makes Disney an exciting place to be,” he says. “We are selling creative content that is constantly changing and I personally find that variety very stimulating.”

From “Lizzie McGuire” to “Hannah Montana,” Disney Channel has long been the top network for girls. Now, Disney is rebranding Toon Disney in hopes that it will become the premiere network for boys.

In February, Toon Disney, the ad-supported cable network available in 70 million households, will morph into Disney XD, a channel targeting boys ages 6-14.

Programming will consist of a mix of live-action and cartoons, including shows about video games and skateboarding, aimed at drawing viewers away from the traditional heavyweights in the demo, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network.

The reason for the switch isn’t difficult to understand. Disney Channel has made periodic efforts to target boys through series like “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” and “Cody in the House,” but its audience remains 65 percent female in the 6-11 demo.

By targeting boys 6-14, Disney XD has a chance to tap into a tween market with an estimated $25 billion in buying power, according to reports. There are some 15 million boys in this group, and they are heavy consumers of video games, with boys 9-12 spending roughly six hours a week gaming, according to NPD Group.That demo has already driven some gains for Toon Disney, which programs an animated programming block aimed at boys in the morning.

During this year’s kids’ upfront, Toon Disney saw an increase in ad spending, which a Disney spokesperson attributed to stronger ratings among kids 6-11 last year. Entertainment and video games saw the greatest ad spending increases.

This year, Toon Disney’s ratings growth has cooled off a bit. The network was down during second quarter among kids 2-11 and 6-11, and in July total-day viewership slipped 7 percent among 9-14s, from 55,000 to 51,000, according to Nielsen.

Still, it remains a top-five network across virtually every kids’ demo. Its current lineup consists mostly of older cartoons built on proven franchises, like “Kim Possible,”  “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Power Rangers Jungle Fury.”

The new programming will better reflect tweens’ interests today, and some play off earlier Disney successes. The live-action “Aaron Stone” is a secret identity series like “Hannah Montana,” in which an unassuming teen becomes the real-life version of a popular video game character.

“Mongoose & Luther” follows two best friends who attempt to become world-famous skateboarders, and “Hero and Not” is an animated comic book-style show.

Toon Disney launched in April 1998 as an ad-supported network. It was an offshoot of Disney Channel, which originally began as a premium channel and later switched to a non-commercial basic cable network.

Disney, experiencing one of the worst slumps at the box office in years, is counting on talking dogs and singing teens to turn things around.

When the Walt Disney Co. reported earnings recently, the one glaring weak spot in an otherwise strong quarter was in the company’s Studio Entertainment division, which encompasses the movie studio. Operating income plunged 49 percent and revenue was off 19 percent from a year ago, mostly due to Disney’s pictures performing below expectations.

With its newest release, Swing Vote, succumbing last weekend to a landslide and ticket sales for the studio down nearly 30 percent this year, Disney is now in last place in box office market share — an unusual place for the company that is usually ranked at or near the top.

Disney is betting that won’t last for long, however. Among the movies it believes will put it back on top this fall are Beverly Hills Chihuahua, about a pampered pooch from the 90210 zip code lost in Mexico, and Bolt, an animated film about a showbiz dog that was overseen by Pixar Animation Studios guru John Lasseter. Disney is also releasing High School Musical 3: Senior Year, the third movie in the pubescent franchise and the first debuting on the big screen.

The studio says one of the reasons for its weaker performance at the box office in the third quarter is that results in the year-ago quarter were extraordinarily high due to gains by last summer’s blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, which generated $961 million in worldwide ticket sales. In addition, Disney made a strategic shift a couple years ago to release fewer movies annually, which potentially reduces its box office total.

Still, other than its current Pixar feature Wall-E, which has grossed more than $200 million in the United States, Disney hasn’t hit one out of the park in seven months. It’s biggest live-action bet, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the second film in the franchise co-owned by Phil Anschutz’ Walden Media, performed below expectations at $140 million domestically — less than half of what its 2005 predecessor, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, did and less than half the U.S. total that Pirates achieved.

And, while the studio made some money on modest budget pictures such as College Road Trip and Step Up 2: The Streets, and its Miley Cyrus’ Hannah Montana concert movie beat expectations, those films’ grosses paled next to those collected last year by the comedy Wild Hogs, the action sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and Enchanted.

“What we’re seeing is increased quarterly volatility from fewer film releases,” said Laura Martin, a senior media analyst with Soleil Securities. She said that Disney’s off-quarter was “widely expected” given the comparison to last year’s Pirates sequel. Because Disney has a strong track record delivering franchise hits, the market does not penalize the studio when its movies hit a dry patch at the box office.

Disney Studios chairman Dick Cook said that although box office races “have their place,” public companies such as Disney are “judged on having a great return on capital.” On that account, he said that the Studio Entertainment group — which includes worldwide theatrical, DVD, television sales of movies, stage plays and music earnings — is doing well.

“We’re having the second biggest year in the history of the studio,” said Cook. He noted that last year the division generated operating profit of more than $1 billion, and in the nine fiscal months of this year has earned $988 million.

Of course, much will depend on Disney’s fourth quarter, which will include the lion’s share of earnings from Wall-E, which was released one day before the end of the third fiscal quarter. Cook and his team are bullish about the films they have lined up between now and the end of the year, which also includes an Adam Sandler family comedy at Christmas, titled Bedtime Stories.

The studio could have a much tougher time selling tickets to its upcoming fall release Miracle at St. Anna, a World War II drama directed by Spike Lee.Cook said that quarterly results are heavily dependent on when and which films are released in theaters and on DVD. Dates are selected for how movies will maximize audience, Cook said, and are not tied to the fiscal calendar.

But these days, Disney has fewer swings at bat than its competitors.“When you make fewer movies, each one is going to count more,” Cook acknowledges.

Martin said that’s a strategy that investors support. “The live-action film business is a very low return-on-capital business and Wall Street likes the fact that Disney is making fewer films because there’s less opportunity to destroy value,” she said.

Someday, Disney hopes its princes will come. The entertainment giant, which has made billions catering to the princess fantasies of young girls, plans to relaunch Toon Disney as Disney XD, a cable channel that will target boys. The move, under wraps for more than a year, is an attempt by the company to capture a market that has long eluded it.

Starting in February, Disney XD will seek to become to young dudes what Disney Channel, with its lineup of tweeny bopper programs such as “High School Musical,” “Hannah Montana” and “Camp Rock” is to girls. Disney XD, aiming at boys ages 6 to 14, will offer original action-adventure and comedy series, movies, animation and sports-themed shows developed with Walt Disney Co.-owned ESPN.

“What was clear to me, and clear to us, is we had a huge opportunity to create content that were boys’ favorites,” said Rich Ross, president of Disney Channels Worldwide.

Tween boys, ages 9 to 14, account for about $50 billion in spending worldwide, said Greg Kahn, senior vice president of strategic insights for media buying firm Optimedia International USA Inc. Advertisers are eager to reach these young consumers, not just snag a portion of their disposable income, but to build a loyalty they hope will extend into even more free-spending teen years, he said.

But the Disney Channel has struggled for years to find the right programming formula to lure boys, who tend to gravitate to Viacom’s Nickelodeon and Time Warner’s Cartoon Network — that is, when they’re not spending time playing video games. Disney Channel’s popular live-action shows, from its early tween phenomenon, “Lizzie McGuire,” through its current pop-culture sensation, “Hannah Montana,” mainly attract girls.

Efforts to bring in more boys, through male-led series such as “Even Stevens” or “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody,” still haven’t succeeded enough to close the gender gap between female and male viewers.

Animation, traditionally a draw for boys, has been a struggle for Disney Channel, although its newest series, “Phineas and Ferb,” appears to be building a strong male following.

But so far, the network has failed to produce a blockbuster to compete with Nickelodeon’s “SpongeBob SquarePants;” or match the guy-centric focus of Cartoon Network, which one ad buyer described as the ESPN of animation.

“You’re fighting the brand perception, the very, very strong brand equity that’s been in the marketplace for many, many years,” Kahn said of Disney Channel. “It would almost require a completely separate effort to reach tween boys, with a completely different name somehow associated with the Disney property, to reach these tween males.”

None of this is news to Ross, who, with his executive team, spent more than a year with focus groups pondering the eternal verities: “What do boys want?”

The answer, perhaps not surprisingly, is that boys want it all. “What we heard, loud and clear, is they expect from Disney this broad array,” Ross said, with programs running the gamut from animation to action-adventure to comedy. “They expect from Disney the whole thing, including movies.” In short, tween boys are looking for more than a show or two wedged in the midst of the musical theater-inspired programs that have come to define Disney Channel. They want, Disney says, a channel they can call their own.

“They want a place, essentially a headquarters for them where their favorite content exists, that has this broad array of shapes and sizes and tenors and complexities, and treats them with the respect that Disney Channel treats all kids, and the girls are fanatical about,” Ross said.

Instead of tinkering with what works — Disney Channel, which has spawned two billion-dollar creative franchises in High School Musical and Hannah — Ross relaunched a struggling cable asset, Toon Disney, into this destination for boys.

Toon Disney pulls only 10% to 15% of the viewers of Disney Channel, despite the cable network’s reach into nearly 70 million U.S. households. The Nielsen ratings reflect its hodgepodge lineup of geriatric kids shows, such as as “Power Rangers Jungle Fury” and recycled animated offerings such as “Batman: The Animated Series,” and “Jackie Chan Adventures,” and movies.

As the rebranded Disney XD, the ad-supported cable network will boast original series, such as “Aaron Stone,” a live-action show about a video game virtuoso who leads a secret double life as a crime fighter. The show boils down to a male fantasy version of “Hannah Montana,” in which an ordinary teen leads a double life as a rock star.

Former “The Wonder Years” child star Fred Savage directed the pilot for “Mongoose & Luther,” a mock documentary series about two best friends who set out to become the world’s greatest skateboarders.

The project was created by Matt Dearborn and Tom Burkhard, who worked on Disney Channel’s “Even Stevens.”

Established animated series, from “Phineas and Ferb,” to “Batman: The Animated Series,” will air on Disney XD alongside new offerings, such as RoboDz, a short-form series developed in partnership with Toei Animation Co. of Japan, in which robotic life forms defend Earth from space invaders. Plans for an online presence and mobile offerings are also in the works.

“We know we have a huge opportunity to take that asset and make it every bit as powerful as Disney Channel or Playhouse Disney,” Ross said.

A Disney Character Breakfast is one of those beloved originals — a must-do experience for families on a Disney vacation. Here kids of all ages can rise and shine with their favorite Disney Characters and a magical breakfast buffet while receiving photo and autograph signing opportunities that will serve as magical keepsakes for years to come.

During the month of August, United Vacations is including up to four free Disney Character Breakfasts with vacations booked to the Disneyland(R) Resort in Anaheim, California.

To receive this offer customers must enter promo code FREE at the time of purchase and include the following items in their vacation package upon checkout:

* Roundtrip flight to Disneyland(R) Resort (DLR)
* 4 nights or more in an Anaheim area hotel
* 3-Day or longer Park Hopper(R) Bonus Ticket per person, which includes one Magic Morning admission for early entry and advance purchase savings over box office prices
* Up to four Disney Character Breakfasts

For families bigger than four people, additional Character Breakfasts may be purchased for any additional passengers. However, they’ll still get the first four for free.

Offer is valid for bookings made by August 31, 2008 for travel through December 31, 2008.

Consumers: Purchase online at http://www.unitedvacations.com, by calling 888-328-6877 or by contacting a travel agent.