Happiest Broadcasts on Earth?
It sends Pasadena advertising executive Paul Skermetta “up the wall.” But Phyllis Anka, owner of a day-care facility in the Silver Lake area, finds it a “pleasant surprise.”
They are among the thousands of captive adults who, during morning and afternoon commutes, react with either a wince or a smile as kids tune in to their very own radio station, Radio Disney.
Opinions of the self-designated “We’re All Ears” network may differ, but with its 24-hours-a-day of rock oldies, contemporary pop, children’s music (much of it Disney’s), plus contests, contests, contests--Radio Disney is a growing phenomenon.
“We’re far beyond what we expected in terms of the size of the audience,” said Scott McCarthy, Radio Disney vice president and general manager, noting that the network, which began in four test markets in the fall of 1996, now receives about 350,000 calls weekly from young listeners, or “about 1.4 million a month or so.” The network is heard on 25 stations nationwide, including Disney-owned KDIS-AM (710) locally.
More definitive listener numbers are hard to come by, since Arbitron, the company that provides radio ratings, only measures listeners ages 12 and up. KDIS has its share of those too--the most recent ratings showed it averaging a 0.4 share of audience, 38th in the market--but Radio Disney’s target audience is under 12.
Most of the programming is aimed at 6- to 11-year-olds and their parents--mainly moms, McCarthy said, and the “music-intensive” programming is apparently the big draw. It ranges from Hanson’s “MMMBop” and Madonna’s “Material Girl” to Puff Daddy, the theme from “Rugrats,” a rappin’ Mickey Mouse, and Alvin and the Chipmunks.
A constant stream of on-air call-in contests offers Disney products, Nintendo, Beanie Babies and other goodies as prizes; bubbly adult deejays enthuse nonstop; and there are short story segments and a smattering of public-service announcements. Each hour includes two 60-second “features,” as well, such as “ABC News for Kids” or “Gross Facts,” jokes and kid reviews of products and entertainment.
Since this is not public radio, there are commercials, too, and that’s where listener Skermetta goes into wall-climbing mode. Skermetta, who says his 9-year-old granddaughter Amy “adores Radio Disney,” is turned off by what he sees as the channel’s “brainwashing.”
“It’s Disney this, Disney that,” he complained. “You’ve got to go to DisneyWorld, you’ve got to go to the animal park, you’ve got to see this Disney movie, listen to this Disney music, go to Disneyland. I feel like I’ve reached a point where I have to limit Amy’s listening.
“I try not to be negative with her,” Skermetta added, “because she enjoys it so much, but I think it’s having the wrong impact on her. I don’t believe they have the kids’ best interests in the programming; they have their best interests in the programming.”
McCarthy stresses that the network is “very careful” to avoid mixing commercial and programming content. “Before every commercial break, we basically say, ‘We’re going away,’ and when we come back, we say, ‘Now, back to the programming.’ We take that very seriously.”
And, he notes, the network has many non-Disney sponsors.
“General Motors, for example is one of our largest, promoting the Chevy Venture minivan,” McCarthy said. “Obviously, they’re targeting the mothers, the parents, with that commercial, but we have all sorts of kid-oriented products; whether it’s the movie studios or cereal companies like General Mills or Quaker, they’re going after the kids. The great thing about our product is that we really reach both [adults and children] and we reach them simultaneously.”
Diana J. Durham, director of education for a California Medical Assn. subsidiary, has a 9-year-old daughter who is a frequent listener. Durham doesn’t mind the commercials so much, although she wonders how they affect parents “for whom a trip to Disneyland is pretty expensive. It’s not something I can afford to do every month.
“But one of the few buttons we have set on our car [radio] is on Radio Disney,” she said, adding that her daughter counters her reservations about the appropriateness of some of the rock music featured by pointing out “that they do change some words of some songs. And the humor is very kid-oriented.”
“I just wish that there were more choices on the radio for that age group.”
(With the recent demise of Minnesota-based Radio Aahs, Radio Disney is now the only full-time kids’ radio game in town. And Aahs, which was heard over Orange County-based KPLS-AM, never had as much broadcast oomph in the market, nor did Aahs have the advantage of instant name recognition.)
Kindergarten teacher Lisa Vigil, of Glendale, mother of a 2- and 4-year-old, is disappointed that the Radio Disney programming is skewed to older children. She would “like to find something that would be more for preschoolers and primary students. I don’t think it is at all appropriate for my children,” she said, noting that most of the music seems “more for teenagers.”
Phyllis Anka, however, tunes in for the pint-sized charges at her Childhood day-care center and likes what she hears.
“We play it first thing in the morning and sometimes late in the afternoon when we come in from outdoors,” she said. “It’s on for maybe an hour and a half or two hours a day.”
Anka likes the idea of “introducing very young children to what I would consider some real classic oldies that they probably would never have heard. And the older ones like the storytelling time, especially if it’s a story they connect with--the other day it was ‘The Little Mermaid.’ ”
McCarthy said that the network takes parent and educator reaction seriously, and that’s one reason why it plans to offer more “education- and child development-oriented” features, such as a recent special broadcast of a town hall meeting at George Washington University, and a child’s-eye exploration of racism with First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.