Nickelodeon and Sony Music Label Group are about to find out if 15-year-old “iCarly” star Miranda Cosgrove is the next multimedia tween sensation in the vein of Walt Disney’s Miley Cyrus.
The duo are launching the soundtrack to the hit show via Sony’s Columbia Records tomorrow and hoping to use it as a springboard for the much-hyped Cosgrove’s recording career.
Leading the charge is Disney-turned-Columbia talent development executive Jay Landers , who helped launch the multiplatinum music career of Hilary Duff and others at the House of Mouse.
Landers, hired away from Disney over a year ago, is credited with playing a central role in selling Sony Music Chairman Rob Stringer and Columbia co-head Steve Barnett on the prospect of an expanded relationship with the Viacom-owned kids and teen network, to which it was already providing distribution for its soundtracks.
The “iCarly” release is the second project from a year-old alliance between Nick and Sony to go after market leader Disney in the lucrative tween market.
Disney in recent years has turned “High School Musical” and “Hannah Montana” – and the stars behind them – into franchises collectively worth in excess of $1 billion.
Under the deal Stringer forged with MTV Networks boss Judy McGrath and Nick President Cyma Zarghami, the companies agreed to co-develop, co-produce and co-finance television and music projects over four years, with an eye to building similar franchises, where they also can cash in on branded apparel, electronics and other merchandise.
Their first effort under the pact, last fall’s soundtrack album to “The Naked Brothers Band,” a show about a pint-sized rock act of the same name, has sold just shy of 500,000 copies.
Nick and Columbia execs hope they have struck gold with Cosgrove.
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman bragged on the company’s most recent earnings call that “iCarly” is “well on its way to mega-hit status.” And Columbia last month signed Cosgrove to a solo recording contract.
Fueling executive optimism: “iCarly,” in which Cosgrove plays a teenager who produces Webcasts from her attic, ranks as one of the top-rated programs on broadcast and cable TV among kids age six to11 and tweens nine to 14.
The show, about to go into production for its second season due this fall, is averaging 3.5 million viewers an episode since debuting last September.
The soundtrack’s first single, “Leave It All to Me,” has racked up sales of 165,000 downloads so far and spent 11 weeks on iTunes’ pop chart.
But a high-ranking kids’ music executive at a rival label said that Nickelodeon and Sony – which don’t have their own radio network and can’t run music videos in lieu of commercials on TV as Disney does – have their work cut out for them.
“We’re learning as we go,” said one executive close to the project. “Disney didn’t all happen immediately. They had five or six years to figure it out.”