The series was the first series on Disney Channel to premiere on a Saturday night, part of a deliberate strategy by Disney to open up the night to original programming and compete with Nickelodeon's traditional dominance of the evening. The show was paired with the established series "Wizards of Waverly Place", which moved from a Sunday early evening timeslot, in the 8 p.m. (Eastern Time) slot. The series debuted on Disney Channel on May 2, 2009, and drew a solid 4.00 million viewers in the US, 73% of which was female. While this amounted to Disney Channel's best ratings in the time slot in eight months, it was also Disney Channel's second-lowest rated live-action series premiere in nearly four years. "The Hollywood Reporter" comments that "Jonas didn't do poorly, exactly. [...] It's just that one expects the premiere of a show by a heavily promoted major Disney brand like the Jonas Brothers to make a bigger splash."