Friday’s premiere of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars from Lucasfilm Animation was the cable outlet’s most-watched series premiere in history, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research. The hour-long debut was also tops with kids 2-11, tweens and teens in the 9 p.m.-10 p.m. timeslot among all major kids networks. The show attracted a larger number of tweens 9-14 than any original series premiere in Cartoon Network’s 16-year history.
‘This is a great start for our new night of fantasy-action-adventure programming,’ says Stuart Snyder, president and chief operating officer of Turner Broadcasting’s Animation, Young Adults and Kids Media group. ‘Kids and their parents made it a point to tune in to the amazing storytelling and brilliant animation of Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars. We are looking forward to building on this foundation and are thrilled with this turnout and record numbers for Cartoon Network.’
Cartoon Network premiered the new toon The Secret Saturdays on Friday night. Debuting at 8 p.m., the hour-long premiere episodes attracted 35% more kids 6-11 and 86% more boys 6-11 than programming that appeared in the same time period in 2007. The Secret Saturdays also increased delivery among kids 2-11 by 47%, boys 2-11 by 67%, tweens 9-14 by 23% and boys 9-14 by 60%.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars chronicles the adventures of Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda, Ahsoka Tano and other favorite characters as they struggle against the dark side during the divisive Clone Wars. Animated largely at Lucasfilm Animation in Singapore, the show is brought to the screen by supervising director Dave Filoni and exec producer George Lucas.
Created by Jay Stephens, The Secret Saturdays is an animated comedy-action series that chronicles the adventures of Doc, Drew and Zak Saturday, a family of world-saving scientists,. They live in a hidden base and are part of a network of scientists who protect against all the underlying evil in world. To the Saturdays, folk-tales aren’t just legends, but real-life mysteries and adventures.
