Hannah Montana Staying, JONAS Moving

01 June 2009 |


Miley Cyrus isn't done with Hannah Montana. The Jonas Brothers, however, are momentarily done with Saturday night.

Disney Channel announced today that Hannah Montana—and the red-hot Cyrus—will be back for a fourth season.

JONAS, meanwhile, the tween-idol band's fledgling Disney Channel sitcom, is on the move from its original night and time to Sunday, where, presumably, iCarly can't hurt it anymore.

The move to pick up Hannah Montana, record-holder of cable TV's biggest audience for a single series telecast, was a gimme—no matter the wig-doffing business in this spring's hit big-screen version, or Cyrus telling E! Online's Marc Malkin last year that "we're thinking this [third season] is our last season."

Shortly after the Cyrus quote was published, Disney Channel made sure to note to Malkin that it held the option on a fourth Hannah season.

No mere draftee, the 16-year-old Cyrus appears to helping call the shots. Disney Channel said the show's fourth season, at the behest of Cyrus and producers, will find Cyrus' TV family "saying goodbye to their beachfront Malibu home."

There was no word on the future of the wig.

Production on the new season is scheduled to begin early next year. As Miley and father/costar Billy Ray Cyrus both Twittered today, shooting on the third season wraps this Friday.

"i am gonna miss everyone so much," Miley Cyrus wrote in a no-time-for-punctuation post. "but im super stoked about 'the last song.' "

The Last Song is the big-screen drama Cyrus will shoot this summer during her Hannah hiatus.

In related news, the Disney Channel said today it was renewing its freshman Demi Lovato sitcom, Sonny With a Chance, for a second season.

Responding to an inquiry regarding the status of JONAS, which hadn't aired a new episode in two weeks (after premiering only a month ago), the network said the show was getting a new home as part of a routine summer overhaul.

The Monkees-aspiring JONAS debuted May 2 before a solid 4 million viewers, only to get hammered by an iCarly special the following week.

Starting this weekend, the Jonases' show, which formerly led off Saturdays, will be placed behind Sonny With a Chance, which itself will air after Hannah Montana, on Sundays.

According to Disney, JONAS was May's top-rated TV show among children 6-11, who, unfortunately for the sibling stars, aren't old enough to work for the New York Times—and lobby against articles that ask if their act is "fizzling."