Hannah Montana is an American Emmy Award-nominated children's television series, which debuted on March 24, 2006 on Disney Channel.
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Hannah Montana is an American Emmy Award-nominated children's television series, which debuted on March 24, 2006 on Disney Channel. The series focuses on Miley Stewart, (played by Miley Cyrus), who lives a double life as an average teenage girl at school during the day, and a famous pop singer (Hannah Montana) at night, concealing her real identity from the public, other than her close friends and family.

Michael Poryes, who is credited as co-creator, also co-created the hit Disney Channel Original Series That's So Raven. The show is produced by It's a Laugh Productions, Inc., in association with Disney. It is filmed at Tribune Studios in Hollywood, CA. The series premiere scored record ratings for Disney Channel: 5.4 million viewers, a response "beyond our wildest expectations," according to the president of Disney Channel Entertainment.

The original idea for this show was based on the That's So Raven episode "Goin' Hollywood", which was supposed to be the pilot episode for a sitcom called Better Days, in which a child star of a popular TV show of the same name was to try her hand at going to a normal school. The episode "New Kid in School" has the basic premise as that aforementioned episode. Other names considered for the title were The Secret Life of Zoe Stewart (discarded as too similar to Zoey 101 on Nickelodeon), The Popstar Life!, and Alexis Texas. Former American Juniors finalist Jordan McCoy and pop and R&B singer JoJo (who rejected the role) were considered for the role of Zoe Stewart. Miley Cyrus originally auditioned for the role of the "best friend"[4] Lilly Romero, later changed to Lilly Truscott, but they thought she would be better for the main character, so she tried out for Zoe Stewart/Hannah Montana. Zoe Stewart was later changed to Chloe Stewart, which was eventually changed to Miley when she got the part. The names of Hannah Montana were changed a few times. Three of the previous names were Anna Cabana, Samantha York, and Alexis Texas.

In December 2006, Disney announced plans to release Hannah Montana products, including: clothing, jewelery, apparel, and dolls, at select stores.  Play Along Toys released the Hannah Montana fashion dolls, singing dolls and Miley Stewart doll, and other merchandise in August 2007. More Hannah dolls were released in November, along with Oliver and Lilly dolls. They became one of the most popular Christmas toys in 2007.[6] Hannah Montana is signed for at least one more season according to Disney Channel. Filming for the second season started in December. The new season started in April, 2007, in which she is in high school. As stated by Jason Earles at the launch of the High School Musical 2 Extended Edition DVD, filming of the second season has finished.

In addition to the high ratings of the TV series, concerts for Hannah Montana have also been exceedingly popular. Tickets for every concert sell out, with some later being scalped for thousands of dollars. The shows attract much attention, with an example being the attendance of Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich who later admitted to having watched every episode.