History of Disney Channel
[2][3] Instead, they made a deal with HBO to air a select number of Disney films, cartoons, and specials, including a live production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Radio City Music Hall.
[5] The first program ever aired on the channel was also its first original series, Good Morning, Mickey!, which presented Disney animated shorts.
[8] The first "classic" Disney animated film to be broadcast on the channel, Alice in Wonderland, premiered on the network in January 1984.
Sometime in 1986, (Colossal) Pictures produced on-air identification bumpers featuring Mickey Mouse (his gloved hands, and sometimes his feet, only visible) and the logo, be they animated or live action.
In May of that year, The Disney Channel won its first Daytime Emmy Awards for the original made-for-cable film Looking for Miracles, the documentary Calgary '88: 16 Days of Glory, and the special A Conversation with... George Burns, as well as its first Peabody Award for the television film Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme.
In September 1992, the channel began carrying the Disney's Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra series of specials, which aired annually until 1998.
[8] In 1996, veteran cable executive Anne Sweeney was appointed to oversee The Disney Channel as its president; that September as the launch of Disney Channel service in Southeast Asia, the channel began offering a film in primetime each night starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, with the expansion of the Sunday Magical World of Disney film block to Monday through Saturday nights; the new primetime schedule launched in September with the pay cable premiere of The Lion King.
However, Disney Channel began shifting its target audience more toward kids (but continued to cater to family audiences at night),[25] as it decreased the amount of older films it aired, and its music programming shifted focus towards the pre-teen and teenage demographic, incorporating music videos and revamping its concert specials to feature younger musicians popular with that demographic.
Its first series to reach wide popularity, Bear in the Big Blue House, made its debut in October 1997 and was named by TV Guide as one of the "top 10 new shows for kids".
Original programming on Disney Channel began to ramp up during this period starting with the sitcom Flash Forward, and would increase in the following years with shows like The Famous Jett Jackson in 1998 and So Weird in 1999, and into the early 2000s with Lizzie McGuire – whose star Hilary Duff became the first lead actor or actress in one of the channel's original series to cross over into music through a record deal with co-owned music label Hollywood Records.
On September 9, the Vault Disney overnight block was replaced by same-day repeats of the channel's original and acquired programs, primarily to contribute to the network's then-upcoming "hip" image.
On September 30, 2002, Disney Channel introduced a new on-air logo designed by CA Square (using an outline of Mickey Mouse's head as its centerpiece) that would later be adopted by its international sister channels in November 2002, and unveiled a new graphical design to fit the network's new look, as well as an iconic four-note mnemonic jingle composed by Alex Lasarenko.
Dubbed a "Wand ID" by fans, the celebrity introduces themselves by saying their name, the show they are featured on, and end with the line "...and you're watching Disney Channel".
Anne Sweeney was appointed president of Disney–ABC Television Group in 2004, ultimately helping to remake Disney Channel into "the major profit driver in the company" by the middle of the decade[38] as the channel made major inroads in increasing its overall viewership, while in turn using a strategy – which proved successful – to discover, nurture and aggressively cross-promote teen music stars whose style and image were carefully targeted to the pre-teen and teenage demographic[38] (a strategy that has been de-emphasized in the 2010s).
In 2003, Disney Channel premiered its first ever made-for-cable movie musical, The Cheetah Girls, which received a worldwide audience of 84 million viewers.
The earlier success of The Cheetah Girls led to the creation of other music-themed original programming: 2006 saw the debut of the hit original movie High School Musical (on January 20) and the series Hannah Montana (on March 24), the latter of which launched the career of its star Miley Cyrus (who starred opposite her father, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, in the series).
In addition, the channel began putting less emphasis on its animated series, moving some of them from primetime to graveyard slots, while substantially increasing its reliance on teen-oriented sitcoms.
The August debut of the original film Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie became the highest-rated cable program of 2009 (excluding sporting events), premiering to 11.4 million viewers and ranking as the second highest-rated original movie premiere in Disney Channel's history, behind High School Musical 2.
The July 17 premiere of the Wizards/Suite Life on Deck/Hannah Montana crossover special Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana also beat out its cable and broadcast competition that night with 9.1 million viewers (effectively making the Wizards and On Deck episodes featured in the special the highest-rated episodes of both series at that point).
On May 7, 2010, Disney Channel updated its on-air look and began using a modified version of the 2002 logo, which originally was introduced a month earlier in bumpers and promos for weekend evening programming.
[48] Shortly after the premier air date, ratings showed the film was the fifth most watched original movie in cable history.
On February 8, 2016, several newsletters reported that Disney Channel acquired a teen music drama called Backstage[51] that made its premiere on March 25, 2016.
In August, Variety announced that a new single-camera series titled Andi Mack would start production in the fall for a 2017 premiere; the show would also be the first on the network to be geared at Asian Americans.
[52] Around the same time, Deadline reported that Disney Channel had acquired the worldwide TV rights to The ZhuZhus[53] from Nelvana; the show would premiere in the US on September 12, 2016.
Girl Meets World, Best Friends Whenever, and Liv and Maddie all aired their final episodes in January, February, and March respectively.
2018 officially marked Disney Channel's return to animated programming; in February, the network ordered production on Amphibia and The Owl House while also reporting their intent to premiere first-run episodes from the fourth season of Star vs. the Forces of Evil.
New pickups, acquisitions, and renewals would continue throughout the end of 2018 and into 2019, including Star Wars Resistance, Coop & Cami Ask the World, a fourth season of Bunk'd, Sydney to the Max, the miniseries Fast Layne, Just Roll with It, as well as the animated series Go Away, Unicorn!
(co-produced with Canadian children's network YTV), Sadie Sparks, Ghostforce, and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir (which had already aired on Disney Channel's international outlets since its inception).
This move saw the removal of most pre-show wand IDs, while promos for new episodes and movies avoided showing a given time for the premiere.
As of September 2024, Disney Channel viewership had crashed from "2 million in 2014 to a mere 132,000 in 2023", its peak era around 2007 was a distant memory, and its name was increasingly invoked out of nostalgia for its past glory rather than enthusiasm for its upcoming shows.
