Disney Channel (Bulgarian TV channel)

Disney Channel

Country	Bulgaria, Romania Moldova
Broadcast area	Bulgaria, Romania Moldova
Programming
Language(s)	Bulgarian, Romanian
Picture format	16:9 576i SDTV
Ownership
Owner	Disney Branded Television (Disney International Operations)
History
Launched	1 April 1999; 22 years ago (1 April 1999)
Former names	Fox Kids (1999-2005) Jetix (2005-2009)
Links
Website	disneychannel.bg
Availability
Cable
A1	Channel 49
Satellite
Bulsatcom	Channel 39
Vivacom	Channel 93

Disney Channel is a Bulgarian pay television channel centred towards kids. It was launched on 19 September 2009, replacing Jetix Eastern Europe.

The channel's coverage area also includes Romania and Moldova, both of which receive the network with an additional Romanian-language audio track.

History[]

The channel was launched in 1999 as Fox Kids Central and Eastern Europe, following the 1996 launch of Fox Kids UK. The network's programming consisted mostly of older shows from , 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.

In 2000, Bulgarian free-to-air television channel bTV, then owned by News Corporation, launched a Fox Kids-branded block which aired on weekday afternoons and weekend mornings. In 2004 the Fox Kids block was renamed to Jetix. It 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. In 2004, Fox Kids Europe, Fox Kids Latin America and Disney announced to brand all their channels under one brand, titled Jetix. Jetix began as a block on Fox Kids and would eventually rebrand on 1 January 2005.

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 like Disney and ABC. Disney announced in December 2008 to fully purchase Jetix Europe and have it delisted from the Euronext. Most Jetix channels were changed over to Disney XD, but on 26 May 2009, Disney announced that the Jetix channel in certain countries (namely Hungary, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Bulgaria) would be renamed to Disney Channel instead, marking that channel's first introduction in these countries. The channel finally rebranded to Disney Channel on 19 September 2009.

On 1 June 2011, the channel was rebranded to the American graphical package, with the app logo. On 21 July 2014 the channel was rebranded with the German graphical package. On 11 August 2015 Disney Channel Eastern Europe changed its aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9.

Programming[]

See also[]

• Jetix Play
• Disney XD
• Playhouse Disney

References[]

External links[]

• Disney Channel Bulgaria's YouTube page
• Disney Channel Bulgaria website
• TeleManiac Disney Channel forum (in Bulgarian)