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LOS ANGELES – As the Jonas Brothers took the stage at the Dallas Convention Center on Nov. 18, 2006, the group had little to sing about.
The band’s advocate within Columbia Records had left, and the label was dropping them. Few gigs loomed on the horizon. But the crowd at the Radio Disney 10th anniversary concert was oblivious to the Jonas’ travails. As the group sang “Year 3000,” a hit on the station, the audience responded with shrieking, bouncing enthusiasm.
The reaction caught the attention of Disney Channel President Rich Ross, who had been listening to the performance backstage.
“He ran up to me and said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. I want you to know they could be so big,’ ” recalled Kevin Jonas Sr., the boys’ father and manager. “To this day, I look at that moment as the turning point for the Jonas Brothers.”
The Jonases, who now boast two platinum albums, their own Disney Channel show, “Jonas,” and a 3-D concert movie, are among the youthful stars who owe their big break to Ross, the man who could be called the father of “Tween TV.”
Since his arrival as senior vice president of programming in 1996, Ross has transformed Disney Channel from a cable television backwater that ran old films and educational fare into a reliable profit engine for the Walt Disney Co.
But more than that, he led TV’s pursuit of the 9- to 14-year-old “tween” audience, creating wildly popular personalities and shows that not only dominate the age group’s attention but have muscled their way into mainstream popular culture: Hilary Duff as “Lizzie McGuire,” Miley Cyrus as “Hannah Montana,” the “High School Musical” movies and now, the Jonas Brothers.
Ross targeted a void in children’s television – the yawning gap between Tigger, Pooh and the Disney princesses and innuendo-laced prime-time shows. Before Ross’ efforts at the Disney Channel, no network courted the age group, which influences roughly $43 billion in spending annually.
“They existed. They weren’t programmed to,” Ross said. “They were either forced to slum off younger stuff or watch what their parents thought was inappropriate.”
In creating programming for those viewers, Ross helped launch the careers of many of today’s most celebrated figures in young Hollywood, including Shia LaBeouf, Zac Efron and Cyrus. He hopes two rising Disney Channel stars, Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez, will succeed Cyrus as tween phenoms.
“In the 20 years I have known Rich, he has always been recognized for his ability to spot talent,” said Kevin Huvane, managing partner at Creative Artists Agency, who represents Cyrus. “Rich knows intuitively what is relevant to the marketplace and is tremendously savvy at building programming that resonates with audiences. In doing so, he has helped launch a generation of stars.”
The actors and their parents describe him as remarkably approachable and concerned, and his personal touch was on display at the February film premiere of “Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience.” He greeted by name not only protégés such as “Hannah Montana” costar Emily Osment and Madison Pettis, who appeared opposite Dwayne Johnson in Disney’s movie “The Game Plan,” but also the Jonases’ head of security and a Disney photographer.
As the band’s black SUV pulled up to the El Capitan Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, Ross bristled with boyish enthusiasm. “About to be the bedlam,” he predicted, flashing a broad smile as the crowd erupted in screams.
Ross grew up in the 1960s in Eastchester, N.Y., at a time when most families had a single television set in the den and parents fretted about their children’s exposure to the “idiot box.”
Merv Griffin would end up giving Ross his big break in television – albeit indirectly. The entertainer’s bookkeeper was a friend of Ross’ mother, Harriet, and she arranged an interview for 19-year-old Ross with Griffin’s representative, the William Morris Agency in New York, where he was hired to work in the mail room.
After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Fordham University Law School, Ross took a job in the talent department at Nickelodeon. Those early experiences – especially with the young actors he cast in live-action Nickelodeon series such as “Hey Dude” and “Clarissa Explains it All” – would shape his later work at Disney.
The norm for casting was to evaluate talent solely on the child’s audition. “I broke some rules, like meeting the parents, because to me it mattered,” said Ross. “If you understand who the families are, you understand what they need and they want. Then you’re more apt to get it right and be able to support them.”
Indeed, Disney Channel hosts what it calls a “family dinner” at the launch of every new series. The parents laud Ross and Disney Channel Entertainment President Gary Marsh for cultivating an environment where they feel comfortable enough to call or e-mail with questions or concerns.
“From Day One they take a hands-on approach in bringing you into the family,” said Dianna De La Garza, the former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader whose daughter, Lovato, stars in the new Disney Channel series “Sonny With a Chance,” now its highest-rated series.
The 47-year-old Ross and his partner of more than 20 years, Adam Sanderson, live in the Hollywood Hills, but have no children of their own.
He maintains a close relationship, however, with the 14- and 10-year-old daughters of his former roommate and best friend from Fordham Law, who serve as an informal focus group. He described Alexis and Dominique Teixeira as “Truth-meters.”
Dominique Teixeira recently screened “Princess Protection Program,” a new Disney Channel movie starring Gomez and Lovato, at her birthday party. “My friends were like, ‘Oh my God, that was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen,’ ” she said.
