Picture format 16:9 576i (DVB) Language Bulgarian | Country Bulgaria | |
Launched April 1, 1999 (as Fox Kids)
January 1, 2005 (renamed to Jetix)
October, 2007 (Bulgarian audio track)
September 19, 2009 (renamed to Disney Channel) Owned by Disney-ABC Television Group (Disney Channels EMEA) Audience share 1.48% (April 2016, Nielsen Admosphere) | ||
Disney Channel is a Bulgarian language children's television channel that began broadcasting on September 19, 2009 (as announced in a TV promo), after replacing Jetix CEE. Like all new CEE Disney Channels, it will be operated under a formal agreement by Jetix Europe NV to lease its channels to sister company, Disney Channels EMEA (Giorgio Stock is part of the company management of both). Like Jetix CEE, Disney Channel will be distributed in Bulgaria by Media Link, who will also provide translation for the channel's series.
History
The channel was founded in 1999 as Fox Kids Central and Eastern Europe, following the 1996 start of the UK channel of the same name (now Disney XD). Fox Kids' programming consisted mostly of older shows from Fox Children's Productions, which were aired in the US Fox Kids block, and shows from its co-owners, Saban International. Saban also supplied the channel with the series from the Marvel animated universe. Most Bulgarian operators made it available in 1999, often with Russian audio. Later, they mostly switched to the English track.
Meanwhile, in 2000 the new Bulgarian channel bTV, then owned by News Corporation, launched and had a Fox Kids block which aired on weekday afternoons and weekend mornings. In 2004 the Fox Kids block was renamed to Jetix. The block was removed in 2008, although bTV still airs shows from Jetix, but not part of any block.
In 2001, The Walt Disney Company announced its intention to buy Fox Kids' majority owner, Fox Family Worldwide, along with Haim Saban's entertainment companies, which in turn partly owned Fox Family. After the deal, new original programming got less than before, as Saban's animation studio was not bought by Disney and was split off as a separate company - SIP Animation. In 2002, Disney created the Jetix brand, set to replace Fox Kids (the name of which was related to 20th Century Fox). However, it only appeared in Europe in 2004 as a block on all Fox Kids channels. Finally, on January 1, 2005 all channels were re-branded to Jetix.
After Robert Iger became Disney's new chief executive officer, the company started to rename some of its properties in order to focus more on its key brands - Disney, ABC, and perhaps ESPN. Maybe as a result of this, in 2008 Disney announced it would close its US Toon Disney channel, along with its Jetix programming block, and replace it with Disney XD - a new channel aimed at a different audience (boys aged from 6–14 years) with more action-oriented shows. After Disney XD successfully launched on February 13, 2009 in the US, the Disney-ABC Television Group re-branded Jetix France to Disney XD on April 1, 2009 and it was expected to be rolled out to other European territories in 2009. On May 26, 2009, however, Disney announced that the Jetix channel in certain countries (namely Hungary, Romania, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria) would be renamed to The Disney Channel, marking that channel's first introduction in these countries. An exact date was not mentioned but it was expected that the change would happen by the end of 2009. The first Disney Channel promos said "coming soon", but on August 2, 2009 new promos stated the launch date as September 19, 2009. This was also announced to the media a few days later. On June 1, 2011 the channel changed logo. On July 21, 2014 the channel changed its logo again with the current variation, used in the US version.
On August 11, 2015 Disney Channel Bulgaria changed to the 16:9 format.