‘Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana’ Becomes Most Watched Scripted Telecast of 2009

Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana

Kids 6-11 and Tweens 9-14 powered the extravaganza event that crossed over stars and storylines from Wizards of Waverly Place, The Suite Life on Deck and Hannah Montana into the most watched scripted telecast of 2009. The 90-minute presentation also became cable’s No. 1 telecast in those same demographics. In fact, only NBC’s “Super Bowl XLIII” coverage beat Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana as the most watched TV telecast among Kids 6-11.

Nickelodeon sent it’s First Night of a Weekend-Long 10th Anniversary Spongebob Celebration (which featured an original episode at 8pm) against the Disney Channel telecast and lost big time. Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana dominated the rival network’s event by more than doubling it in Total Viewers (9.3 million viewers versus 3.6 million) and more than tripling in core kid demographics (Kids 6-11: 3.8 million vs. 1.2 million and Tweens 9-14: 3.7 million vs 982,000).

This crossover greatly improved upon the first crossover, That’s Suite Life of Hannah Montana. There’s still the problem of juggling all the characters of three shows. Mostly the minor characters, such as Harper from Wizards of Waverly Place and Oliver, Rico and Jackson from Hannah Montana, stayed on their shows and didn’t crossover. Actually the Suite Life on Deck characters cross-overed to the other two shows. And my only criticism of the event was it had too much of the Suite Life characters, but as their show’s setting was the crossover’s setting, I guess that makes sense. I just really wanted to see some Miley-Selena screen time.

We’ll review more in-depth this record setting cross over event on a future blog post as well as on a future episode of The Magic Never Ends Podcast. Stay tuned!

And if you haven’t seen 2009’s Most Watched Scripted Telecast, or want to see it again, watch it TONIGHT, Sunday, July 19, at 8pm on the Disney Channel.