Wholesomeness once again paid off bigtime for the Walt Disney Co., which saw its revenue climb 9 percent to $10.45 billion in its last quarter compared to $9.58 billion a year ago. Disney said that the rise was due in great measure to the overwhelming popularity of its Disney Channel favorites, Hannah Montana and High School Musical 2. Earnings rose 29 percent when one-time gains of a year ago, including the sale of Disney's stake in E! Entertainment and Us Weekly, were excluded. Announcement of the quarterly results came as Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour 3-D film was setting box-office records. Speaking with analysts, Disney CEO Robert Iger said, "Its impressive performance highlights our mission perfectly." He pointed out that a Hannah Montana soundtrack CD sold 8 million copies, that a Miley Cyrus concert tour was an immediate sell-out, and that video games based on the character sold more than 1.7 million units. Only Disney's movie business reported lower income during the quarter, as DVD sales of its hit movies Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End and Ratatouille came in 9 percent below Disney films released on DVD a year ago. In early trading today (Wednesday) Disney shares were up more than 5 percent.

Heath Ledger's death was attributed to the effects of a lethal combination of prescription drugs, none of which was lethal on its own, according to the New York City medical examiner. On the night of his death, the medical examiner said today (Wednesday), Ledger had ingested six types of painkillers, anti-anxiety drugs and sleep aids that reportedly were prescribed by doctors in the U.S. and the U.K. There was no indication that he had taken the drugs to end his life.

Regardless of whether the Oscars' presentation is staged as usual this year, there will be one less A-list celebrity party. Vanity Fair magazine said that it was canceling its annual post-Oscars party, saying it was doing so "in support of the writers and everyone else affected by this strike." In an interview with today's (Wednesday) New York Times, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter said, "A magazine like Vanity Fair is a group of writers and artists, and we are in solidarity with the writers and artists out there. ... Whether the strike is over or not, there are a lot of bruised feelings. I don't think it's appropriate for a big magazine from the East to come in and pretend nothing happened."

In an apparent effort to make more room for "rented" movies downloaded from Disney's iTunes online store, Apple has expanded the storage capacity of its iPhone and the iPod Touch. The Touch now provides a maximum of 32 GB on select models; the iPhone will offer as much as 16 GB. Announcement of the product enhancements failed to impress Wall Street, where Apple closed Tuesday's trading down nearly 2 percent. Nevertheless, in early trading today (Wednesday), Apple shares had recovered most of their losses.

Following warnings from analysts that the current weakening economy could result in people cutting back on entertainment expenses -- and in particular, on expensive visits to theme parks, the Walt Disney Co. said Thursday that thus far it has seen no sign of such retrenchment. Disney CFO Tom Staggs said Tuesday that business at the company's theme parks and resort hotels is running "modestly ahead" of last year. Some observers have suggested that while American visitors may have elected to cut back on visits to Walt Disney World and Disneyland, foreign visitors, taking advantage of the weak dollar, are descending on the parks in droves.

Relatively few consumers are planning to make the transition from DVDs to high-definition HD DVD or Blu-ray, according to a survey by NPD Group. The researchers said that among owners of HDTV sets, seven out of 10 say they see no need to purchase high-definition players, maintaining that they are satisfied with the quality of their current players. "one of the main challenges for the next-generation" format, NPD Group senior entertainment industry analyst Russ Crupnick told Bloomberg News, "is you have a product out there that is pretty darn good in consumers' eyes."

The celebrity guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi died Tuesday in the Netherlands at age 91. The "Reesh," as his celebrity followers sometimes called him, launched the worldwide Transcendental Meditation movement in the 1960s and eventually drew the Beatles, Mike Love of The Beach Boys, Clint Eastwood and 60s singer Donovan among his followers.

For the first time in memory, Fox TV shows held the top seven positions on the weekly Nielsen ratings chart, producing the highest-rated week in the network's history. Moreover, the average weekly ratings for Fox far exceeded the ratings of the other three major TV networks combined, averaging a 16.4 rating and a 26 share. CBS, the second-highest-rated network, registered a 4.7/7 average, while ABC and NBC tied for third place with a 4.2/7. The Super Bowl telecast, of course, topped the Nielsen list with a 43.1/65, representing about 97.45 million viewers, the second-largest Super Bowl audience in history and the second-largest since Nielsen began keeping records. (It was exceeded by the 1983 finale of M*A*S*H, which attracted $106 million. In pre-Nielsen days, CBS's 1957 broadcast of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, the songwriters' only musical written for television, was reportedly watched by 107-120 million viewers.)

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. Super Bowl XLII, Fox, 43.1/65; 2. Super Bowl Post Game, Fox, 30.1/47; 3. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 15.7/24; 3. House (Post Super Bowl Special), Fox, 15.7/27; 5. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 14.4/22; 6. House, Fox, 12.9/19; 7. Moment of Truth, Fox, 10.2/15; 8. Lost (9:00 p.m.), ABC, 9.4/14; 9. Lost (8:00 p.m.), ABC, 8.0/12; 10. NCIS, CBS, 7.7/12.

With its rivals offering heavy coverage of Super Tuesday primary results, Fox continued to draw viewers who were more interested in a contest of a different sort. American Idol once again dominated Tuesday's ratings, recording a 16.2 rating and a 24 share, far ahead of all the election coverage combined. Among the networks that did offer election coverage, NBC led with its 10:00 p.m. feature capturing a 4.4/7. ABC which offered coverage of the elections throughout primetime -- and beyond -- averaged a 4.2/6, while Katie Couric's election-night report from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m., drew just a 3.4/5.

Reminiscent of the feuds between Jack Benny and Fred Allen during the "golden age of radio" when a silly disagreement between the two comics would begin on Benny's show and then carry on to Allen's, Conan O'Brien, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert appeared on each other's late-night shows Monday debating over which one of them "made" presidential contender Mike Huckabee. "My favorite comedy is comedy where nothing is achieved and there is no point," O'Brien told the Associated Press Tuesday. "That this whole Huckabee fight turned into an insane Marx brothers dance was fitting somehow." Stewart and Colbert later issued a joint statement saying, "Conan's claims on Mike Huckabee could not go unanswered. ... We just hope the kids out there learned that sometimes the best way to resolve a conflict is with violence." The A.P. observed that such a gag could not have involved Jay Leno and David Letterman, who have long had icy relations. O'Brien appeared to agree, noting that "this happened because the three of us knew we would like doing this with each other."

A ten-minute Dutch documentary that portrays the Koran as an inspiration for "intolerance, murder and terror" may test the limits of free speech in countries where it is due to be shown. The film was produced by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament, who caused an uproar last year when he called for the banning of the Koran. An Iranian MP, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, has predicted widespread protests against the Netherlands if the film is distributed and said that the Iranian Parliament could reconsider its relations with that country. The movie, which originally was scheduled to be shown in January, will apparently finally end up on Dutch TV in March.

In the apparent belief that negotiators for the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers will be able to put their reported agreement on a new contract into writing by the end of the week, the WGA's East- and West-Coast branches have called an informational meeting of its members on Saturday. However, even as the members were being notified of the meeting, the WGA's chief negotiator John Bowman, was advising them that several significant differences remain to be settled.