David Dale
After attending the recent launch of Nikki Webster’s album Follow Your Heart, this column formed two opinions: 1) Nikki Webster seems to be a good singer and a pleasant person, but she must start eating more; 2) The entertainment industry has barely begun to exploit the newly identified audience segment called “the Tweens” (which means consumers between six and 11, who are too old forHi-5 and too young for Britney Spears).
The majority of people at the CD launch were under the age of 10. They cheered and squealed as Webster sang and danced four numbers. Meanwhile, the adults stared in some alarm at Webster’s skinny arms and projecting shoulderbones, and worried at how fragile she looked by comparison with her dancers. She’s 14, but could pass for 11.
Her producer remarked in a speech that, while making the album, he tried to ensure she kept “doing her homework and eating”. In conversation, members of her entourage said Webster drives herself so hard that meals are not a big priority for her. We hope this is a passing phase.
Her record company, BMG, wants her to eat more. It is keen to protect a lucrative investment. Company officials said they contracted for the Webster album without being quite sure what audience she would reach, and were surprised at how young the fans turned out to be.
The creators of Webster’s dance routines and her song lyrics have been careful to avoid the sexuality that dominates the work of America’s teen idol, Britney Spears. The raunchiest Webster gets is: “Green light means tonight may be the night. Get yourself in gear and go. Kiss me boy just take it slow … Like the turtle not the hare, you will win my heart I swear.” This might cause some adults to worry that Webster’s nine-year-old fans are being pulled prematurely into puberty, but mostly she sings gentle stuff about the value of friendship and of being true to yourself.
So far, parents have shelled out for more than 100,000 copies of her single, Strawberry Kisses, and more than 40,000 copies of her album. Webster is about to soar past the current leaders in pre-teen CD sales, Hi-5 (the cleancut smilers from Channel 9’s morning TV series). No doubt other record companies have their talent scouts searching the land for Webster clones.
The Tweens’ financial power has already manifested itself in the video market. The latest top 10 of Australia’s most-purchased videos (below) contains only one vaguely adult product the special effects movie X-Men at No 4. The top seller is a Wiggles collection called Hoop-Dee-Doo (which is for the pre-Tweens, along with Hi-5 Snow Party at No 7). The rest are Tween favourites.
By contrast, the sales chart for DVDs suggests that the teenage thrill seekers who used to dominate the video market have all received DVD players for their birthdays. The DVD top 10 contains an array of special effects dramas and a “special edition” of Road Trip with “unseen and explicit footage”. Hopefully the Tweens aren’t quite ready for that.
Footnote: And now for something from the opposite end of the age spectrum. Channel 9 disagreed with this column’s assertion last week that Madonna is a finished fad, based on the audience for her televised concert looking smaller than the audience for Ten’s youth soap, The Secret Life of Us. Nine points out that the ratings figure for Madonna was averaged over two hours, and if you compare only the hour in which she overlapped with Secret Life, her audience was actually bigger. Madonna started at 9.30pm with 2 million viewers in the mainland capitals, while Secret Life started with a mere 900,000. By 11pm, Madonna’s audience had shrunk to half a million.
So this column must correct its pessimism about the virgin-simulating material girl. She still has lots of fans in Australia. It’s just that nowadays they have a tendency to nod off in front of the telly.
VIDEOS
Top selling videos, July
1 Wiggles-Hoop-Dee-Doo
2 Buzz Lightyear of Star Command
3 Dinosaur
4 X-Men
5 Fox & the Hound
6 Thomas Tank Engine & Magic Railroad
7 Hi-5 Snow Party
8 Bob the Builder Goes Fishing
9 Titan A.E.
10 Chicken Run
DVDs
Top selling DVDs, July
1 X-Men
2 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
3 Mission: Impossible ll
4 What Women Want
5 Titan A. E.
6 Charlie’s Angels
7 Vertical Limit
8 The Matrix
9 Space Cowboys
10 Road Trip Unseen & Explicit
GFK MARKETING
CDs
Top albums, week ending August 13
1 2 Bridget Jones’s Diary (soundtrack)
2 – IOWA (Slipknot)
3 5 Three Chord Opera (Neil Diamond)
4 3 Drops of Jupiter (Train)
5 2 Moulin Rouge (soundtrack)
Top single Hanging by a Moment (Lifehouse)
ARIA
FILMS
Last weekend’s box office
$m Total
1 – Jurassic Park lll 3.743 3.743
2 1 A Knight’s Tale 1.500 4.488
3 2 Bridget Jones’s Diary .877 19.225
4 4 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin .764 2.329
5 5 Blow .697 1.974
6 3 Planet of the Apes .588 10.446
MPDAA
TV
Most-watched shows, Sydney, August 26 – September 1
1 Goodwill Games Day 2 (9) 672
2 National Nine News Sunday (9) 641
3 The Weakest Link – Special (7) 637
4 Goodwill Games Day 1 (9) 635
5 Goodwill Games Day 3 (9) 630
6 Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (9) 608
7 Rugby Union: Bledisloe Cup (7) 594
8 Ground Force (7) 591
9 60 Minutes (9) 571
10 All Aussie Adventures (10) 563
OZTAM
Source: Sydney Morning Herald