Disney World

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.”

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.

Joey Yung joined TVB’s four Olympic Stars Raymond Lam, Bernice Liu, Linda Chung and Edwin Siu at a rehearsal for the Disney Olympic Parade yesterday at Hong Kong Disneyland. The combination of human and cartoon stars attracted the attentions of many visitors to the park, who stopped to join in and take photographs.

With the opening of the Beijing games just days away, Joey revealed that she still did not know whether or not she will have to go and take part. Asked about the news of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang, Joey said that she was confident in the ability of the security services and was not worried about any attacks in Beijing.

Talking about the reports that Gillian Chung is finally returning to work, Joey said that she had heard the news and had been in touch. She said that Gillian was quite nervous about her appearance at the basketball match.

Linda said that her mother had attended the event and she had arranged a special night’s stay at the Disneyland hotel as a treat. Asked what her mum thought about rumoured boyfriend Raymond, she replied that she did not know. When reporters asked her once again about being particularly friendly with Raymond, Linda said that he just happened to be the one stood closest to her during the photocall.

Talking of the continued rumours linking her to Raymond, Linda laughed that she will just see this as promotion for their series Moonlight Resonance.

Raymond was asked whether or not he had met up with Linda’s mum during the event and he pointed out that he had met Mama Chung before at TVB City, but he did not know her very well. Asked if he thought that Linda was a great girl, he replied jokingly that he wasn’t too bad himself.

We scooted quickly to the front of Indiana Jones Adventure, Disneyland’s herky-jerky thrill ride designed, I’m sure, by a chiropractor looking for business.

We hopped right on Knott’s Berry Farm’s Sierra Sidewinder, a newfangled roller coaster that not only zips you along the traditional up-and-down track but also allows your four-person cart to spin. We could have ridden it again and again without much wait if my queasy stomach hadn’t kept me grounded.

We shuffled through the queue for maybe seven minutes to hop a tram tour of the back lot at Universal Studios Hollywood. I wanted to see the damage from a massive June fire that wiped out acres of old street facades and buildings that served as sets for movies including “Transformers,” “Back to the Future” and “Spider-Man 2.”

Meanwhile, at Wild Rivers, a sprawling suburban water park in Irvine, the line was so short to ride Bazooka Bowls that I flushed myself through it multiple times. Visualize being shot via steep tube slide into a water-gushing toilet bowl the size of a Starbucks coffee shop, swirling around and around, then flushing through a hole for a 3-foot drop into a 9-foot-deep pool.

Yee-ha! Wish you were here.

If you ever wanted to do what we did – experience Southern California’s theme parks, shop Rodeo Drive, sunbathe on Venice Beach – you should do it this summer.

Because America has decided to stay home.

Theme park revenues in the U.S. will decline this year by more than 2 percent – the first decline since travel rebounded from the terrorist attacks of September 2001, according to a recent industry report from IBISWorld, a business intelligence research firm here in L.A.

Staycations have replaced trips to the Magic Kingdom as gas prices have raised travel costs and declining housing values robbed many families of the equity vault they tapped for travel and other luxuries.

“Park admissions are expected to suffer this summer because of the economic outlook and related deferred investment in new rides and facilities,” said George Van Horn, senior analyst for IBISWorld.

The Walt Disney Co., which operates Disneyland and Disney World theme parks in the U.S., accounts for around half of the industry’s revenue as a result of more than 50 million visitors a year.

And since U.S. visitors account for 80 to 85 percent of theme park attendance, an anticipated boost in international tourists can’t offset the number of Americans staying home.

“Even Disney will not be safe” from the economic downturn, Van Horn said.

On the ground here – this is my 13th visit to a Disney theme park – I can report never seeing crowds this light. I wouldn’t even call it a crowd despite a sunny, 80-degree day.

Van Horn said he thinks Disney – and the entire theme park industry – needs to look beyond America’s immediate economic troubles to a longer-term trend if it wants to recapture the magic.

“While the 25- to 44-year demographic and their kids have typically been the main visitors to theme parks, the vast number of baby boomers entering retirement – with plenty of spare time and money on their hands – must not be neglected,” he said.

“Over the four years to 2012, the 60-plus age group will experience an average annualized growth of 2.8 percent, the strongest growth in all age categories,” Van Horn said. “And theme parks may need to adjust their offering to appeal to older Americans and foreign tourists, too, through shows, musical activities and gentler rides.”

That’s all industry insider gobbledy-gook.

I’ve aged beyond the typical demographic, but I’m still a sucker for Minnie Mouse, driving Beverly Hills to see the homes of the rich and famous and sitting down for a warm slice of Mrs. Knott’s boysenberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. (Although gentler rides agree with me these days.)

If you can afford it, Alaska Airlines still has an airfare deal going – through Thursday – with late summer airfares as low as $79 each way to LAX.

If you can’t afford it this year, start saving up for summer 2009. IBISWorld’s report anticipates the numbers next year will look about as gloomy as they do this year – for the industry.

But for you and me, having smaller crowds to fight through makes the experience much more pleasant.

And we can get flushed through the Bazooka Bowls many more times.

Disney Destinations International is expected to launch Disney Travel on-demand, the first commercial initiative on Virgin Media’s Showcase environment, this week. Showcase is available to Virgin Media’s television subscribers and offers advertisers an area to air ad content.

Disney Travel on-demand is a series of 10-minute programmes, featuring Walt Disney World, Florida, available to view by Virgin Media subscribers at any time.

The programmes feature a “call to action”, enabling viewers to order a Walt Disney World vacation planning kit, as well as details of how to contact a Walt Disney Travel Company representative.

The on-demand ad content will be supported on Virginmedia.com, with a dedicated sub-channel within the travel section of the Virgin Media portal. Additional support will come from Virgin Media’s customer magazine, Electric, sent monthly to more than one million subscribers.

The deal was negotiated by Virgin Media’s sales house IDS.

Independent film studio Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. said Tuesday it has reached an agreement with Walt Disney Co.’s ABC Studios to distribute several television series on DVD.

Lions Gate will distribute DVDs of programs such as “According to Jim,” which stars Jim Belushi, “Reaper,” “Hope & Faith,” “8 Simple Rules…for Dating My Teenage Daughter” and “Kevin Hill,” among others.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

The agreement comes on the heels of a partnership Lions Gate reached last month with cable company Comcast Corp. to distribute DVDs of shows such as “Keeping up with the Kardashians” and “Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane.”

Shares of Lions Gates rose 7 cents to 10.03 in morning trading.

Disney-backed US sports channel ESPN has acquired a motor racing website, while Disney Interactive Media Group buys a new parenting website in the UK.

ESPN has taken over 13-year-old Racing-Live.com, which serves up motor sport news to three million unique users per month in English, French, Japanese, Italian, German and Spanish.

“Motor racing has a global fan base, and this agreement will allow us to serve fans more motor sports coverage than ever before,” said Russell Wolff, executive VP and MD of ESPN International.

The purchase, for an undisclosed sum, follows recent acquisitions of Cricinfo.com and Scrum.com, and “complements our extensive NASCAR and classic motor sports coverage,” added Wolff.

Elsewhere in the Mouse empire, Disney Interactive bought parenting website Raisingkids.co.uk to sit alongside into its own three-week-old UKfamily.co.uk within Disney Online.

Raisingkids.co.uk claims 142,000 unique visitors per month, 1.3 million page impressions and a registered database of more than 100,000 parents. It was founded in 2001 by leading child psychologist Dr Pat Spungin, who will stay on board, as will the site’s editor Catherine Hanly and web producer Michael Howard.

Cindy Rose, senior VP and MD of Disney Interactive Media Group Europe, Middle East and Africa, said: “Raisingkids.co.uk has a fantastic reputation among parents.”

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

When Walt Disney Co. reported earnings last week, the glaring weak spot in an otherwise strong quarter was the company’s Studio Entertainment unit, which encompasses the movie studio. Operating income plunged 49% and revenue was off 19% from a year ago, mostly because Disney’s pictures didn’t meet expectations.

With its newest release, the political comedy “Swing Vote,” buried in a landslide last weekend and U.S. ticket sales down nearly 30% this year, Disney finds itself in last place among the six major studios in box-office market share — unusual for a company usually at or near the top.

Disney is betting that won’t last long, however. It has high hopes this fall for “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 project is being shepherded 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 premiering on the big screen.

The studio said one reason for its weaker performance in the third quarter was that results in the year-ago quarter were extraordinarily high, pumped up by the blockbuster “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” which generated $961 million in worldwide ticket sales.

In addition, Disney made a strategic decision a couple of years ago to release fewer movies annually, which potentially reduces its box-office total.

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

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. But 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 Group.

She said Disney’s off quarter was “widely expected,” given the comparison with last year’s “Pirates” sequel. Because Disney has a strong track record of delivering franchise hits, the market does not penalize the studio when it hits 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, the Studio Entertainment group — which includes worldwide theatrical, DVD and television sales of movies, stage plays and music earnings — was doing well.

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

Of course, much will depend on fourth-quarter results, which will include the majority of earnings from “Wall-E,” released one day before the end of the third quarter.

Cook and his team are bullish about the films they have lined up for the rest of the year, which also include an Adam Sandler family comedy titled “Bedtime Stories,” scheduled for a holiday release.

The studio could have a tougher time selling tickets to its fall release “Miracle at St. Anna,” a World War II drama directed by Spike Lee that is being touted for its award prospects.

Cook said quarterly results were heavily dependent on when and which films were released in theaters and on DVD.

Disney these days has fewer swings at bat than its competitors. In 2005, in a major cost-cutting move, the studio decided to produce and release fewer movies and maintain a less diverse slate so it could focus more heavily on its “branded,” mainstream family fare.

Results, therefore, can swing more wildly between the hits and misses. The studio now releases about a dozen movies annually compared with more than twice that number a few years ago.

“When you make fewer movies, each one is going to count more,” Cook acknowledges.

Martin said that’s a strategy 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.

However, Martin said Wall Street had been asking Disney what its next big live-action franchise would be — a question that, she said, “Disney hasn’t yet answered.”