Disney Airing New Show on Tablets Before Cable

Disney has announced plans to release a brand new show on mobile phones and tablets before airing it on its cable channels.

The show is called Sheriff Callie’s Wild West, and it will debut first as a timed exclusive on the Watch Disney Junior App for mobile devices starting on November 24th. The show will air on cable through Disney Channel and Disney Junior sometime in 2014.

“We have been amazed at how quickly kids have embraced this new technology,” said Nancy Kanter, executive vice president of Disney Junior Worldwide to the New York Times.

“We’re talking billions of minutes spent watching.”

In terms of specifics, the Watch Disney Junior App has been downloaded over 5 million times according to the company, and the total number of clips watched has eclipsed 650 million views.

“We get a lot of emails from dads saying, ‘Thanks for giving me back my TV,’” mentioned Albert Cheng, digital media chief of Disney-ABC Television Group. “It’s important that we offer something real there to reinforce the value.”

Given the recent uprising in our society of not only tablets and smart devices, but utilization of those devices for children’s entertainment and education, Disney’s choice to test these waters doesn’t come as a huge shock. In fact, Disney has been considerably quick to adapt to changing technology over the years.

Take for example the company’s push for kids to bring an iPad to theater re-screenings of The Little Mermaid, in which Disney designed and released an app to enhance that very viewing experience for kids. Disney may own two of the most-watched channels on television, but it doesn’t seem afraid to reach out and dominate other mediums as well.

Though there are no solid statistics that show which entertainment medium dominates our children’s viewing habits the most, there’s no doubt that with as many kids as we see playing Angry Birds, it can’t be trailing too far behind television, if it even is anymore.