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Disney Channel (United Kingdom and Ireland)

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For the Disney Channel in other countries, see Disney Channel around the world. For the original Disney Channel, see Disney Channel.
Disney Channel
CountryUnited Kingdom
Republic of Ireland
HeadquartersChiswick, London
Ownership
OwnerDisney-ABC Television Group

Disney Channel is a British children's entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland since 1 October 1995. A 1 hour timeshift service called Disney Channel +1 is available on Sky and Virgin Media. Disney Channel currently has three sister channels; Disney Cinemagic, Playhouse Disney and Disney XD.

Overview

Disney Channel does not broadcast commercial advertisements, relying instead on revenue from the subscription fees that the viewer must pay. Despite the lack of commercials, most non-movie programming is broken up by non-commercial breaks, during which trailers for Disney's programming and specially-commissioned short programmes (e.g. Disney 365) are usually shown. Disney Channel has now, however, undertaken its first ever commercial sponsorship of a programme; Wizards of Waverly Place is sponsored by Asda-owned clothing brand 'George'.

Disney Channel also offers an interactive television service on Sky. Viewers who press the red button on their Sky remote control are able to access information about shows, character profiles, detailed TV listings, quizzes, and hundreds of messages submitted by viewers. The interactive service was designed and built by Pushbutton, and went live in September 2007[1] replacing the old service created by Tamblin. Previously, Disney Channel also had a Teletext service, consisting of about 200 pages, known as Disney Text.

The interactive service also includes links to a small selection of games. Some can be played as 'overlay' games, with the channel video continuing in the background; others are accessible via a link to a Disney-branded section of BSkyB's Sky Games interactive service. The overlay games are developed by Pushbutton and French game developers Visiware.

Disney Channel sometimes carries the British version of sign language on its late evening programming. Many newer series, such as Hannah Montana, are also Audio Described on Sky.

History and availability

Disney Channel was originally planned to launch in 1989 on the newly launched Sky satellite service. It was featured in much of the promotional material surrounding the launch of Sky Television and the Astra satellite. Due to an apparent dispute, the launch was cancelled. Sky Television filed a lawsuit against the Walt Disney Company for not launching the channel.[2]

The channel appeared on 1 October 1995. At first the channel's broadcasting hours were 06:00 to 22:00 with Sky Movies Gold airing during the station's downtime. The launch of Sky in 1998 saw the channel increase its broadcasting hours for digital satellite viewers.

On 29 September 2000, Disney Channel launched two sister channels, a pre-school oriented Playhouse Disney and the now-defunct 24-hour cartoon channel Toon Disney. A one hour timeshift of Disney Channel also launched on the same day. All 3 were only available to Sky subscribers. NTL and Telewest customers could only receive the main Disney Channel. On all platforms, the Disney Channel package was a premium offering, requiring an additional subscription fee in order to view, though Sky subscribers could receive the channels for free if they also subscribed to the full Sky Movies package (aka Sky Movies World, with contained 4 Sky Premier channels, 5 Sky MovieMax channels and 2 Sky Cinema channels). Despite the launch of Playhouse Disney, Disney Channel continue to air a block of Playhouse Disney-branded preschool programmes during school mornings, although has in recent years been greatly reduced.

In early 2006, Sky and Disney were locked in ongoing negotiations over a new contract for carriage on the former's digital satellite television service. The previous, ten-year deal, which was inked while Sky floated on the stock exchange in 1994, was temporarily extended whilst both sides attempted to reach an agreement. Sky was understood to have been seeking a substantially reduced payment towards the kids broadcaster[citation needed]. A new agreement, reported to be worth £130 million a year[citation needed], was reached on 27 February 2007. As a result, on 16 March, changes were made to the Disney services in the UK. Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney ceased to be premium add-on channels and instead operated as part of basic-level subscription packages (such as Sky's "Kids Mix".) A new premium service, subscription channel Disney Cinemagic, was launched to take the Disney slot in the Sky Movies premium bundle; Toon Disney was taken off the air to free up a broadcast slot for the Cinemagic channel, and has never returned; Disney Channel's main one-hour timeshift, Disney Channel +1 was initially taken off the air to free up a slot for the premium Disney Cinemagic +1. However, Disney Channel +1 subsequently returned on 26 June 2006.

On 27 October 2006, Disney Channel was added to Top Up TV Anytime, a new service that downloads programming from 19 channels to a special digital video recorder. In 2007 Disney have added more VoD content to Virgin Media's Service. On November 22, 2007 it was announced Disney Channel joined the lineup for Picnic‎, BSkyB's proposed new pay-TV service for DTT.

New Disney Channel era (2007-present)

In 2007, Disney Channel remodeled its looks. The logo, instead of bouncing around the screen, turned into a ribbon and swirled around the screen until forming the logo. 2007 saw the debut of two new original series, the That's So Raven spinoff Cory in the House which ended after two seasons (a possible casualty of the 2007 Writer's Guild strike, which caused freshman or sophomore series whose production was interrupted midway through the season to eventually be cancelled), and the popular Wizards of Waverly Place, starring Selena Gomez, David Henrie and Jake T. Austin. 2008 is recognized for its new series such as Phineas and Ferb, Brian O'Brian, and The Suite Life on Deck, the spin-off to The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, plus new Disney Channel Original Movies such as Camp Rock , Minutemen and The Cheetah Girls: One World. The Suite Life on Deck was the number one series in the respective categories in kids ages 6–12 and tweens ages 9–14 in 2008.[6] In 2009, Disney Channel launched two new series: Sonny with a Chance (the first original series shot in high definition) starring Demi Lovato in February, and JONAS starring the Jonas Brothers in May. New movies in 2009 included: Dadnapped, Hatching Pete, Princess Protection Program, and Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie. The four original movies for 2009 had the widest range of Disney Channel Stars in the networks history. First time ever since Starstruck the Disney Channel original movie premiered in May 2010 had been displayed in a widescreen aspect ratio (16:9). A new set of mini-idents for shows premiered on Saturday 11th September. The theme for each ident is made for the programme, meanwhile before it was simply against a polkadot background. The new international logo is going to premier on November 1, 2010.

Live Presentation

Main article: Studio Disney UK

Until recently, live presentation was an important feature of Disney Channel. The best known example of this launched in September 1997 as Disney Channel UK Live, and relaunched as Studio Disney on 23 April 2001. Presenters included: Nigel Mitchell, Emma Lee, Leah Charles, Jean Anderson, Mark Rumble, Amy Garcia, Ollie from Freefaller, James McCourt, Jemma James (now Jemma Forte). Studio Disney ran on weekdays, usually from 16:00 to 19:00, in direct competition with similar services offered by CBBC, CITV and Nickelodeon. The show featured a team of between two and six presenters who came on air between programmes, giving viewers the opportunity to call in, interact and win prizes. Studio Disney also produced many of its own short programmes, including Wish Upon a Star and Junior Journo, which were aired during the block itself and between programmes at other times. Studio Disney bowed out on 1 July 2005, in line with the disappearance of afternoon in-vision presentation on CITV and Nickelodeon the previous year and leaving the channel with a format similar to that of its American counterpart.

The live presentation of the show, would also run competitions in which viewers could win holidays, and other prizes. Special holiday competitions would be run, New Year, Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Chinese New Year, Christmas, etc. For instance, a Mother's Day Competition of 2003 involved Emma Lee surprising four entrants and their mothers to a special get-away. Meanwhile, a Father's Day - Competition of 2004 involved James McCourt and Nigel Mitchell treating one lucky dad to a day at Silverstone Grand Prix track.

At other times of day, pre-recorded presentation was used, typically recorded in such a manner that viewers would believe that it was live. An example of this was breakfast segment Up (and later called Zoom!), which was hosted out-of-vision by Capital Disney presenter, and managing director Will Chambers. Another example originated from the Monster March event that ran throughout March 2002, during which the schedule featured many monster-themed shows and movies. Pre-recorded sketches featuring a Mexican dinosaur puppet named Raoul were inserted between programmes, and as this proved popular[citation needed], Raoul was given a number of his own segments on the channel over the next few years, including The Raoul Show, Good Morning Raoul and The Raoul Summer. The best sketches from The Raoul Show were made into a series of short programmes entitled The Best of Raoul. Raoul was even the subject of a question on the 20th Anniversary edition of Trivial Pursuit[1].

Disney Channel also held an annual awards ceremony called the Disney Channel Kids Awards. The categories were centred around music, sport, television and film. The winners in each category were voted for by viewers online. The ceremonies, hosted by Studio Disney presenters, were held at The Royal Albert Hall and London Arena. These were broadcast on Disney Channel and Five and featured performances from popular music artists such as Girls Aloud.

Website

Disney Channel's website features information, games, interactive features and contact details and submission forms. The site has been made entirely in Adobe Flash since early 2002. In 2003, it was completely redesigned to fit with the other Disney Channel's worldwide after the global rebrand. In 2007, the service Disney XD (or DXD for short) was added to disneychannel.co.uk, when the website's homepage was revamped to fit the look of the American site. The Disney XD service was given to the United Kingdom because of its popularity. In June 2009, Disney XD was renamed as My Page to avoid getting confused with the Sister Channel Disney XD.

Disney Channel programmes

Main article: List of programmes broadcast by Disney Channel in the UK & Ireland

Films

Disney Channel traditionally broadcast most of its movies, including Walt Disney Studios movies and Disney Channel Original Movies, on the main channel. These were usually shown daily at 7pm under The Wonderful World of Disney (earlier The Magical World of Disney) brand. On weekends, the channel would show at least three movies per a day. The Saturday Movie Showdown took place every Saturday morning, wherein viewers were invited to vote for one of a selection of three movies on the channel's website, the winner being aired in the 11am slot. Starting in 2003,[verification needed] Latterly, a movie was transmitted in widescreen with Dolby Digital Surround Sound on Sundays at 4pm - much of the channel's other content was in 4:3 at this time.

However, when Disney Cinemagic launched in March 2006, The Wonderful World of Disney and the Sunday widescreen movie were axed, and all Walt Disney Studios movies were moved over to the new channel, such that they can remain as a premium add-on. However, Disney Channel Original Movies are still broadcast regularly on Disney Channel, with premieres of new ones shown on Friday evenings a short while after their premiere in the US (usually a few weeks, though in some cases, such as Full Court Miracle and Tiger Cruise, the delay can be up to several years - the latter, which had its US premiere in 2004, has [as of 2010] never been aired in the UK). As a result of these changes, movies are now shown more frequently across Disney's channels overall, and non-Cinemagic subscribers can now see Disney Channel Original Movies.

Films which have screened on Disney Channel include:

References

  1. ^ "Pushbutton creates interactivity for Disney Channel UK".
  2. ^ "Number 2043". SWEDEN CALLING DXERS. May 16, 1989.
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