Member Since: 1/26/2010
Posts: 67
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Will “Big Time Rush” Crush the Disney Reign?
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Never heard of Big Time Rush? Perhaps you saw them in the New York Times Style section. Or maybe you saw them reflected in the fevered eyed of a tweenage girl. Because lately, it seems like every sixth grader in a skirt is thinking about them.
For the uninitiated, Big Time Rush star on, um, Big Time Rush, a Nickelodeon original series that follows four best friends from Minnesota who are “discovered” at a nation-wide audition. A struggling producer needs a new boy-band to revive his career, and he thinks these hockey-playing novices could be his ticket. Soon enough, he transports them to L.A., along with the lead singer’s mom and smart-alecky little sister.
This fish out of water scenario is mixed with a strong dose of sugary pop tunes, since each episode ends with the boys in the studio, harmonizing their hearts out.
While Big Time Rush is big-time missing the sly humor that makes iCarly, another Nick series, so palatable to parents, it still has charm. With heaps of slapstick, goofy sound effects, and over-the-top episode arcs, it’s like a modern-day Monkees, with a high-gloss finish for the post-MTV generation.
The popularity of Big Time Rush is astounding. Their premiere episode aired after iCarly’s record-breaking iSaved Your Life, pulling in 6.8 million viewers. They have amassed enough fans to record a concert in Times Square, which is the focal point of their first television movie special, airing tonight at 8:00 PM.
And about that Times Square concert: Is it a TV episode, or is it a live concert designed to drive up hype and move digital downloads? Or both? What once would have taken place on a studio lot with loads of extras now appears as a public concert with real screaming fans, blurring the lines between television and reality.
That’s part of what makes Big Time Rush so fascinating: It reflects Viacom’s new push to find more synergy among its holdings, a strategy that has made Disney an unstoppable tween machine over the past several decades.
To that end, Nickelodeon, a Viacom network, is airing the Big Time Rush movie. Sony Music, which inked a deal to co-finance music and television properties with Viacom in 2007, is releasing Big Time Rush‘s debut CD (Sony also released iCarly star Miranda Cosgrove’s debut CD earlier this year).
Then there’s more synergy: In a New York Times article from July 4, Brad Grey (studio chair of Paramount Pictures, also a Viacom property) discusses his company’s new focus on developing Nickelodeon properties (and stars) for film projects distributed under the Paramount banner.
While it remains to be seen if Big Time Rush will be as successful as The Monkees—a show that won the Emmy for best comedy series in 1967 and spawned a pop group with loads of hit singles—Viacom is clearly ready to give the Mouse House a run for the almighty Tween dollar.
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At this point of time, Team Nickelodeon. JONAS was better before they went to LA. Hannah Montana and Wizards of Waverly Place are coming to an end.
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:heart: 
