Watch out Hannah Montana, here’s iCarly

The Disney Channel show Hannah Montana, with its spin-off movies, merchandising and music, is everywhere at the moment.  But is Hannah already being eclipsed by a newer TV 'tween queen', Carly Shay?
 
Hannah Montana - in which 16-year-old Miley Cyrus plays a schoolgirl who leads a double life as a globe-trotting rock star - has been pipped in the US ratings for children's and young teenagers’ television by Nickelodeon's TV series iCarly.

Only just into its second series, iCarly, in which a web-savvy down-to-earth schoolgirl called Carly Shay produces an internet TV show with her friends, is already attracting around 5.6m viewers per episode, trouncing Hannah Montana by a cool million.
 
Shay is played by 15-year-old Miranda Cosgrove who is now set to become as big as Cyrus. The young actress was spotted singing in a Los Angeles restaurant by a talent agent when she was just eight years old. Before her big break as Carly, Cosgrove had numerous bit parts in films and TV shows. Now all that has changed and Columbia Records has released a soundtrack album, featuring four songs written by her.
 
The key to the show's sudden success is its use of new media, with numerous references to social networking sites like Twitter and websites like YouTube. "It has come at a very relevant time," Ashley dos Santos, a pop-culture expert, told the Observer. "Social media are taking off. This show is about technology that children themselves are using, indeed they probably know far more about it than their parents." ·