Originally posted by MouseRight
I think us devoted Disney fans who want to see all "Walt Disney" all the time, have to realize that a Disney Channel focused on classic Disney did not work. TV is a business and when the people don't watch, the programming must change. Sorry, that's a fact of life in the real world. After the poor performance, Disney made a strategic decision to reach a child/teen demographic. While us Walt devotees are frustrated, the channel has done an excellent job of creating some great shows, that are not "Nickelodeon light" (a complaint heard on these boards). The Live action shows (Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens, So Raven), original movies (the drag race movie with teen girl becoming a drag race champ was a good example), and animated shows like Kim Possible are really good (From a parent's perspective) and have reached the target demographic very well. Doing so, helps Disney reach a new generation who are pelted with cleverly disguised promo after promo for Theme Parks, Disney Movies, etc. My pre-teen watches many hours of the Disney channel and so do her friends. It has respectability in their world.
Time for us old folks (Age 19 to ?) to get over it and let the Disney Channel be what it has become.
You were responding to my comments about Mr. Eisner's comments where he said that he was using the Disney Channel as a "franchise machine" aimed at 'tween-agers exclusively, rather than to the whole family, as was important to Walt.
I really like many of the fresh, new shows. It is good to target the 'tweenage audience with clean shows.
My complaint was with the fact that it was an empty marketing move, and thus disengenuous. You train up cynicism when kids realize as they grow up that what they were told (sold) when they were younger was just marketing, kids-stuff.
You have a customer for life when the customer can see a larger sense of wholeness in your message. When the later hours of the Disney Channel have things that the same tweens can watch with their family, then the whole thing has context. Furthermore, the audience is broader. And the sense of family is strengthened, both in the living room and in the corporate sense.
The Disney Channel does not need to repeat "Even Stevens" ten or eleven times a day, especially overnight. Those times (or some weekend slots) should feature some of the classic Disney series and live-action movies. I am 37, and I watched the original MMC in RERUNS, twenty years after it was on live; but just like "Leave it to Beaver" or "Andy Griffith," I found it neat at the time (when I was about 12) to see what my parents were like at my age. Same would be true today for kids' grandparents, etc. [Note that many young people today still think "Beaver" and "Andy Griffith" are fun to watch: few young people cannot immitate Eddie Haskell or Barney Fife, or at least tell you who they were. It is not the age of the show, but the writing and timelessness or fun of the themes that determines its relevance to future generations.]
The Disney Channel also should continue to have live theme park shows at least once a week, even if not the MMC or an animal show from the DAK. It could be thoroughly contemporary, but a chance for modern kids to participate in the MMC-type tradition in a natural environment (the Disney-MGM Studios). Then, it would even meet Michael's "franchise machine," "business synergies" goals.
My point is that the whole family can be served without diminishing advances with shows aimed at the 'tween audience.
Finally, PLEASE NOTE: Current news about advances in audience for the Disney Channel are somewhat misleading. They ignore the fact that the channel is still in the process of changing in many markets from a premium (pay) channel to a free channel. They just became a free channel for us last year. Any channel that goes from a pay channel to free will suddenly look like a huge success in audience ratings.... irrespective of its programming.
It just frustrates me that I paid for it all those years, and as soon as it is free, they drop much of the stuff that made it distinctive for me (and to many younger people that I know)....
But of course he knows what he's talking about over all of the rest of us. 
