Country Czech Republic | ||
Launched February, 1999 (as Fox Kids)
January 1, 2005 (as Jetix)
September 19, 2009 (as Disney Channel) Owned by Disney-ABC Television Group Broadcast area Czech Republic
Romania
Moldova
Bulgaria
Hungary
Serbia
Slovakia
Belarus
Kazakhstan
Russia
Ukraine Formerly called Fox Kids (1999—2004)
Jetix (2005—2010) Sister channel(s) Disney Channel
Disney Channel Scandinavia | ||
Disney Channel is a children's television channel owned by Disney-ABC Television Group broadcast in Romania, Bulgaria and other countries. It was previously known as Fox Kids, then Jetix. There are several variations of the channel which broadcast simultaneously in seven languages (using DVB audio technology): Romanian, English, Bulgarian, Czech, Hungarian, Russian. Advertising is shown in Romanian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, and Russian.
Contents
Disney Channel Central Europe is broadcast in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.
Disney Channel East is broadcast in Romania and Bulgaria and has different programming to Disney Central Europe, other variations of Disney Channel are also broadcast in many other regions including Serbia and Ukraine.
History
On August 11, 2008 Jetix started broadcasting a block of "Disney Stars" in Romania and Bulgaria, featuring the series Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb, American Dragon and Hannah Montana. High School Musical aired on August 22, 2008 and High School Musical 2 aired on November 1, 2008. It was fully dubbed into Romanian, and an old Bulgarian translation of Kim Possible (once aired on BNT Channel 1) was made available on October 20, 2008. High School Musical 2 was also dubbed. Subsequently, Phineas and Ferb and American Dragon were also dubbed by Media Link using voice-over dubbing (unlike all pre-2005 Disney cartoon series, which were all dubbed with synchronized voices). This way of dubbing is very common in Bulgarian television, because it costs less and takes less time to produce (as the voices of actors are just placed directly over a quieted original voice track). Usually, only theatrically or home video-released animated films are dubbed with synchronized voices, and in the 1990s only Disney's animated series were dubbed this way for television. Only starting in 2008, Disney allowed Bulgarian broadcasters to dub films themselves, and all of them were using voice-over dubbing.
After Disney XD successfully launched on February 13, 2009 in the US, it was expected to be rolled out to European territories in 2009. Later, however, Disney announced that the Jetix channel in certain countries (Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Bulgaria and Israel) will be renamed to Disney Channel, marking that channel's first introduction in these countries. The change took place on September 19, 2009 in the CEE region. Disney Channel Romania & Bulgaria are broadcast as a single video feed with two audio channels and there is also a Russian audio channel.
On September 19, 2009, Disney Channel replaced Jetix in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Romania and Slovakia. But the Russian feed was still broadcasting under the Jetix name til it was announced that a separate Disney Channel would launch. After the launch of Disney Channel in Romania and Bulgaria, the Jetix feed in Russia began to be independent and got localized, with Russian titlecards and banners with Russian hours
On August 10, 2010, Disney Channel replaced Jetix in CIS.
On October 16, 2010, Disney Channel CEE launched a Ukrainian audio for audience in Ukraine, which was deleted on 1 January 2013 for unknown reasons.
Upcoming series
Feeds
On the Romanian and Bulgarian version of Disney Channel, at the commercial break ident it shows just the Romanian word for "commercials": RECLAME, without the Bulgarian word, like on Jetix, where it showed first "RECLAME", then "РЕКЛАМА".
Availability
Disney Channel is broadcast in Romania by all cable TV and DTH operators. The Romanian version of the channel is also included in the list of channels of various Moldovan cable operators as well as in the basic package of the digital platform Digi TV in Serbia and Croatia.
Disney Channel Romania is broadcast in 24/7 mode by all cable and satellite TV operators .
Fox Kids, then Jetix, and now Disney Channel have been available in all cable operators in Bulgaria since around 1999 and were mostly broadcast with either the Russian or English language audio track. In October 2007, a Bulgarian audio track was added to for some of the shows on Jetix. Jetix was previously shown in Bulgaria on bTV, which continued to air a Jetix block even after Fox Kids was sold to Disney. Translation and distribution for the channel's Bulgarian version was handled by Media Link. It was expected that the channel would reach 100% translation of its shows in 2008. However, this was achieved only in early 2009, with many shows being withheld from broadcast after February 2009 until translation of their episodes was completed. In May and June many such programs were returned to the channel, since translation had advanced a lot. Hannah Montana was the only untranslated show, but it was available in Bulgarian on BNT 1 since March 28, 2009. Promos aired in English and not in Bulgarian.
Jetix in Russia was based on this channel, but all things related to Disney were automatically replaced with Jetix promos. Certain shows which then did not air on the regular Jetix CEE (W.I.T.C.H., Iggy Arbuckle) were part of the hour-and-a-half long programming block that replaced the Disney block. When Jetix CEE was changed to Disney Channel, the Russian language transmission ceased. Jetix Russia continued to exist as a separate channel til August 10, 2010.
Disney Junior
Playhouse Disney was launched the same day as Disney Channel as a block. In 2010, Playhouse Disney was launched as a channel, replacing Jetix Play. In June 2011, Playhouse Disney was replaced by Disney Junior.