‘Wizards’ Help Disney 2009-08-31

With the premiere of “Wizards of Waverly Place The Movie,” above, the Disney Channel now has the year’s most-watched telecast on cable television.

The “Wizards” movie drew an average of 11.4 million viewers on Friday night, including 4.5 million between the ages of 6 and 11.

Disney said the movie was its second most popular ever, behind “High School Musical 2” (2007), which averaged 17.2 million viewers.

With “Wizards” running on a Friday night, when many channels run repeats, it doubled the prime-time average of each of the broadcast networks.

A third season of the “Wizards” series, which stars Selena Gomez, David Henrie and Jake T. Austin as sibling wizards in training, is now in production.

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