TV's tween scene

Nine-year-old Melissa Langley made sure to catch "High School Musical" when the made-for-TV movie debuted on The Disney Channel in January.

Since then, the fourth-grader has watched it three or four more times, bought the soundtrack and taught herself a few of the dance numbers from the movie.

"I just really like the songs," Melissa says. "When I fall to sleep, sometimes I listen to the songs."

"High School Musical" is pretty much her favorite thing on TV right now, along with "Zoey 101," "Hannah Montana" and "Tom and Jerry."

Melissa is a tween — a kid between the ages of 9 and 14 — and if the only one of her faves you knew was the classic cat-and-mouse cartoon, well, you're not a tween, and you probably don't have one living under your roof.

And before you dismiss all this as kids' stuff, consider this: Tweens are big business and a powerful entertainment audience — the soundtrack to "High School Musical," for example, twice hit No. 1 on the Billboard album chart last month, topping releases by James Blunt, Mary J. Blige, Barry Manilow and Eminem.

The series and movies tweens watch on networks such as The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon are among the highest-rated on all of cable.

A big market

With roughly 25 million tweens in the United States, the money they spend — or influence their families to spend — totals more than $50 billion a year, by many industry and media estimates.

Yet even as their viewership makes hits of TV shows, movies and music, it remains a hidden audience, one that most outside the tween world might not even know exists.

"When we won for best kids show, we wanted to go out and celebrate," says Drake Bell, 19, star of "Drake and Josh" on Nickelodeon, which won several awards at the Kids Choice Awards earlier this month.

"With the Oscars, you can go out and celebrate, and everybody's, 'Woo-hoo, the Oscar winners!' " says Bell, who won best actor at the awards show. "With this, everyone who knew who we were was in bed by 8 p.m."

To understand the cultural phenomenon of tween TV — and increasingly, its spinoffs into music, the Internet and shopping — look to the early 1990s, when kid-oriented cable channels started to fill a niche abandoned by the broadcast networks.

"I think the networks used to try to program for kids and family," says Dan Schneider, who acted on one such show, "Head of the Class," in the 1980s before going on to create tween programs such as "The Amanda Show," "Drake and Josh" and "Zoey 101."

"Sometime in the early to mid-'90s, 8 p.m. television went away from family to being 'Friends' — and you really don't want your 10-year-old watching 'Friends,' " Schneider says.

Nickelodeon had many of the early tween shows — "Clarissa Explains It All," Schneider's "All That" and "The Secret World of Alex Mack," from Tommy Lynch, like Schneider, a tween programming mogul.

What they discovered was that kids in that age range didn't want to watch shows for little kids, and didn't want to watch their parents' shows. Instead, they wanted to see themselves and their stories on TV.

"They love stories about themselves," says Lynch, whose other programs include "Romeo!" and "Caitlin's Way." "Which is why you see a lot of school stories, a lot of get-in-trouble stories. And funny is a big part of it — our audience loves funny."

Putting kids on top

Schneider says his main goal is to create "a world where kids rule," he says. "If you think about it, kids are always being told what to do, what to say, when to do it — they're very controlled ... I give them an escape, where the kids are in charge."

He and others who create programs for tweens say the other common attribute of the shows is honesty — it has to feel real to the audience.

"You're telling a story that relatable, that's accessible and, particularly with 'High School Musical,' a story with some wish fulfillment attached," says Gary Marsh, the Disney Channel's president for entertainment.

"There's an adage out there — 'Tween is not an age, it's a stage,' " Marsh says. "Kids are trapped between the cocoon and comfort of being a child, and the rebellion and independence they want as a teenager.

"So your goal is trying to satisfy all those needs that kids have."

With "High School Musical," Marsh notes, The Disney Channel did that and then some.

The story of kids from different cliques — the basketball star and the brainy girl — who decide to try out for the school musical has attracted more than 34 million different viewers over 10 showings since its debut Jan. 20.

By the time a karaoke version aired a day later, 1.2 million fans downloaded lyrics from the Disney Web site to sing along. The soundtrack CD has sold more than 2 million copies and topped the charts in online sales at the iTunes store.

The strong iTunes sales point to what show creators say is the future, targeting tech-savvy tweens with original content online, like the behind-the-scenes podcasts Schneider does with the "Zoey 101" cast.

"When I was a kid, my favorite show was 'Happy Days,' " he says. "If I could have heard a recording of the cast of 'Happy Days' just sitting around having fun, talking about the show in a party atmosphere, I'd have lost my mind."

Real-life situations

Drake Bell, of "Drake and Josh," who grew up on Nickelodeon — watching its shows and then starring in "The Amanda Show" and the spinoff "Drake and Josh" — said the shows succeed because they show real kids doing real things in humorous settings.

"They're wholesome, and really actually funny," says Bell. "It's not like you turn it on, and it's kids throwing pies in each other's faces. There's actually validity to the work."

Not, of course, that there's anything wrong with silly stuff like pies in the face or square-pantsed sponges.

Because even with all the tween programming on The Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, tweens still watch a lot of animation on those channels, as well as the Cartoon Network.

Nicholas DeNuccio, 11, and Bree LaBare, 13, rate "SpongeBob SquarePants" as highly as they do shows such as "Zoey 101" and "Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide."

But what they say about the tween shows is right on target with what their makers say: They like the school settings and stories, they like the little lessons on how to navigate that world, and they like all the humor.

Dad Jim DeNuccio gives them a thumbs-up, too, for their safe content and relevance to kids today.

"They're real scenarios, real relationships," he says. "What's on a 10- or 12 year-old's mind these days — it's all about girlfriends and boyfriends and being aware of yourself.

"From a father's point of view, it's OK with me," he says.

Hooked on tweens

From show creator Schneider's perspective, the tween genre is a fine place for him, too. He's repeatedly turned down offers to move into primetime adult TV.

One reason is the greater control broadcast networks exercise over their shows. The main reason is that as networks have proliferated on cable, the audience has splintered, and hit shows seldom become the water-cooler talk they were in the old days.

"When I was on 'Head of the Class,' 25 million, 30 million people would watch that every night — now a big hit doesn't get a third of that audience," Schneider says. "I liked television in the old days. I liked that everybody knew every episode of 'The Brady Bunch,' everybody knew every episode of 'Cheers.'

"There's not a tween in this country that doesn't know 'Drake and Josh' well," Schneider says. "You can't bring me a 12-year-old that doesn't know 'Zoey.'

"Tween television is the last area, the last audience, where the whole nation knows these shows."