To Build a Young-Adult Crowd, ABC Family Gets More Physical

Brooks Barnes

New York Times

June 28, 2008
 

LOS ANGELES — “The Secret Life of the American Teenager,” a coming cable drama, opens with a 15-year-old getting pregnant at band camp. Subsequent scenes depict two teenagers, each asking adults for free condoms.

And those are the nice kids. To rebuff an invitation to a church dance, the school’s resident party girl wraps her arm around a boy and sneers, “My mom is out of town, so we’re going over to my house to drink beer and have sex.” She’s not joking, as a later scene emphasizes.

A new offering from MTV? Not even close. “American Teenager” is the latest from ABC Family, the Walt Disney Company’s cable channel aimed at older teenagers and young adults.

ABC Family hopes the show, along with the established teenage soap opera “Greek” and a coming mini-series called “Samurai Girl,” will complete its makeover into a year-round, top-rated channel, something it has long sought but never quite accomplished.

“We’ve achieved the point where a lot of what we have learned is coming together,” said Paul Lee, the channel’s president. “Our brand is relevant to young audiences without excluding everybody else. Any way you look at it, ABC Family is a top-tier network.”

ABC Family has been drowned out by the roar of Disney Channel’s supercharged engines — anybody would look meek standing next to “Hannah Montana” — but the channel has earned a competitive slot among ad-supported cable outlets. Total viewership has climbed sharply during each of the past five years, pushed by new shows like “Greek,” and ABC Family has posted a 96 percent rise in ad sales over that period, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

Last winter it drew more viewers in the 18-to-49 age group than Lifetime, Sci-Fi or MTV, according to Nielsen Media Research, ranking it No. 6 among cable channels. It attracts one of the youngest audiences in television, with a median age of 31.

The trick has been finding series that are provocative enough to draw younger viewers but still wholesome enough to draw parental approval. So “Greek,” about the fraternity scene at the fictitious Cyprus-Rhodes University, depicts a lot of carousing, for example, but is careful to show the heartache that typically results.

“American Teenager,” which makes its debut on Tuesday evening, also tries to walk that line. Amid the hormones run amok are a few characters who chug milk at lunch and chat about their decisions to remain chaste. The series, whose executive producer is Brenda Hampton (“Seventh Heaven”), also stars Molly Ringwald as a mother who reacts poorly to her daughter’s behavior. At the end of episodes cast members will appear in public-service announcements discussing ways to prevent teenage pregnancy.

Time will tell what parents think of the show, but some advertisers are blanching, according to Natalie Conway, a Starcom Worldwide executive who negotiates advertising time for clients like Walgreens, Kellogg’s and Nintendo.

“There will be clients that will shy away from that particular title,” she said. She added, “We have a lot of clients that have content sensitivity and mom-oriented products, and ABC Family is usually a really nice fit.”

Mr. Lee said “American Teenager” was a “perfect story” for the channel. “Certainly, we deal with real issues on the network, and that is part of what makes us relevant,” he said.

When Disney bought the channel in 2001 for $5.2 billion from the News Corporation and the media investor Haim Saban, it planned to show reruns of shows from its broadcast network, ABC. But ratings slumped without original programming. The cable channel, founded as the Family Channel by the evangelist Pat Robertson, also had a lot of baggage, including a contractual obligation to retain the word “family” in its name and run Mr. Robertson’s “700 Club” talk show in perpetuity.

ABC Family plodded along until Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, was given control. She hired Mr. Lee in April 2004, and the pair bought reruns of “Gilmore Girls” and “Smallville.” They used those series, both popular with younger adults, to introduce original shows like “Kyle XY,” a hit about a mysterious teenager who has no significant memories of his childhood.

Mr. Lee plowed resources into “25 Days of Christmas,” a successful annual programming venture featuring holiday-themed movies and specials. Original movies also became more of a focus, and “The 700 Club” was plastered with new disclaimers before, during and after, pointing out that it is not linked in any way to the channel.

“I think ABC Family has a very strong case to say that it understands millennials better than anybody else,” said Jack Mackenzie, a senior vice president at Frank N. Magid Associates, a television consulting group, referring to consumers ages 13 to 30.

Shifting the identity of the channel risks chasing off loyal viewers, particularly the conservative ones who have been ABC Family’s bedrock. But Disney sees an opening that it feels is too big to ignore. MTV, despite “The Hills,” is still recovering from a sharp drop in viewers, and the CW network is struggling.

“I really want ABC Family to stay in tune and in touch with this audience, especially using technology to make deeper connections,” Ms. Sweeney said.

Besides, standing pat isn’t an option. ABC Family, a fully distributed channel that reaches about 95 million homes, must rely on improved advertising sales to grow; the easiest way to do that is through attention-grabbing shows.

Rivals are also moving onto ABC Family’s turf. Nickelodeon, for instance, is pouring resources into its evening programming block, Nick at Nite, now that the first generation of Nickelodeon viewers has grown up. The effort will include original movies and reality shows, each new territory for Nick at Nite.

“There is a real opportunity here to connect with a family audience, something that’s not a part of Nick’s historical DNA,” said Cyma Zarghami, Nickelodeon’s president, in announcing the push.

Mr. Lee called the competition flattering but said he was more aware of internal pressures. ABC Family has held its own as a moneymaker — “Kyle XY” reruns have been sold to channels in more than 200 countries — but has not delivered a megahit like Disney Channel’s “High School Musical” that can become a companywide franchise.

Aside from “American Teenager,” Mr. Lee has another opportunity coming up with “Samurai Girl.” This six-hour mini-series tells the story of a teenager who discovers that her adoptive father leads the Japanese mob. (She trains as a samurai to fight the criminal empire.) If successful, “Samurai Girl,” which stars Jamie Chung, will return as a full-fledged series.

“We believe Jamie has real breakout potential,” Mr. Lee said.