Almost 8 million watch Nickelodeon’s ‘iCarly’ special event -- and Disney doesn’t like it
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A war is brewing between Nickelodeon and Disney Channel – and their press departments! -- over who is more popular with young viewers: “iCarly’s” Carly Shay or Hannah Montana?
On Monday morning, Nickelodeon issued a press release celebrating the network’s success with its one-hour “iCarly” special, “iFight Shelby Marx,” which drew 7.9 million viewers Saturday, winning the night in basic cable among kids and overall audiences alike.
The release touted the showing as a series high and noted that in fact “iFight” crushed Disney Channel’s competitive programming (the final installment of the “Wizards of Waverly Place” four-part saga “Wizards & Vampires vs. Zombies,” and a rerun episode of “Hannah Montana”).
But not so fast.
At 3:47 p.m., Disney Channel issued a release of its own. Its release didn’t actually dispute Nickelodeon’s but instead pointed out that, in case you were curious, Disney’s cross-over special “Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana” still ranks as the No. 1 telecast across all of cable. (Nick is an ad-supported basic cable network, whereas Disney is not.) It was watched by 9.3 million viewers when it premiered in July. At the time, Disney noted that it “towered over” (and those words were bold and underlined) the first night of Nick’s weekend-long 10th anniversary “Spongebob Squarepants” celebration.
Soon after Disney’s missive was fired, Nick noted to Showtracker that “iCarly” still ranks as television’s No. 1 series among kids 2-11 and kids 6-11. That’s across all TV – not just cable. A rep for Nick said: “The Nielsen numbers speak for themselves – and clearly the audience wants more iCarly.” To answer that claim, Disney noted “Hannah” this year leads in tweens, albeit among scripted series on cable.
The growing ratings for “iCarly” has seemed to put Disney’s PR team on red alert in recent months with ratings releases on behalf of ‘Hannah’ and even the lagging ‘JONAS’ flying fast and furious.
A Disney rep did acknowledge that the “Wizards & Vampires” finale was bumped up to Saturday night at the 11th hour to try to pull audiences from “iFight.” It had originally been scheduled to run in the month.
-- Denise Martin