Idolator

I spend most Saturday mornings watching the local UHF channel's presentation of the best of Soul Train—entire episodes, including the Scramble Board!—and occasionally I wonder what happened to the teen dance show? Club MTV is long gone and American Bandstand didn't make it into the 90's, but the reasonably-priced nature of throwing some teenagers on a soundstage somewhere in Studio City to dance to various pop and urban hits seems like a can't miss programming decision. Apparently, someone at Nickelodeon has discovered a way to remotely read my thoughts (this isn't the first time I've suspected this), as they've announced 12 original episodes of Dance on Sunset! Sure, Don Cornelius won't be there or the Soul Train line, but you have to take what you can get. Instead, there's some sort of Youtubeish element involved. Plus, we get to see the Akon and Colbie Calliat duet we've all been waiting for! And Menudo! And crossover promotion for other Nickelodeon programming! More »

Reflecting the record industry fully ceding its destiny to the prepubescents, the title of this story puts it right out there: "Nickelodeon Looks For Its Own H.S. Musical." But it's not just the networks, because the blood-starved major labels are also lining up to suck whatever life is left out of virginal HSM. Nick's entry is called (uh) the Naked Brothers, a coed pack of off-brand Jonas Brothers who star on the "top-rated show for kids 6-11 on ad-supported cable, averaging 1.6 million live viewers since its premiere and often garnering 10 million total viewers through the course of seven days," according to Advertising Age. The Naked Brother (sorry, that's just not going to stop being weird to me any time soon) are under the stewardship of one Doug Cohn, former Atlantic Records marketing exec and current intermediary between Viacom and Sony on their "newly created joint venture" to blanket the earth with the Naked Brothers. And "blanket" is right, because the saturation bombing promotional strategy Cohn describes means the group will shortly be inescapable: More »