Kids TV on multichannel TV over the years

[RegularCapital]

Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney, went to basic packages (even in most of Western Europe) in 2006, on the same week Toon Disney was shut down, and all the premium content went to a relaunched Disney Cinemagic.

Inevitable, Disney needed to be a more general channel, too bad Disney Channel was a quite bare-boned channel by back then (it actually improved in the later years, although it also went down before shutting down), repeating the same tween content almost all the time (including popular Recess, which was also on Cinemagic), with only some two classic programs at around 1pm weekdays, mainly Smart Guy and the less popular and short Teen Angel! The very popular Boy Meets World was dropped..

But there also was a quality problem, the tween programmes were mainly sitcoms by back then, and the quality wasn't great either: things like Suite Life and Hannah Montana were decent at best
They proved to be popular though, but the worst thing is that everything on Disney Channel was about celebrities or people about trying to be famous (including promotions), as it was the only thing worth in people's lives

I prefer the pre-2006 era of Disney Channel, and I agree that the worst thing about Disney Channel was about celebrities or people about trying to be famous, I think that was sending the wrong message to kids at the time, in the same way that everyone wants to become a YouTuber or social influencer nowadays. In terms of Disney "owned" channels at the time, I was more interested in Jetix, Toon Disney and Disney Cinemagic.

On the "Have linear pay channels had their day?" thread it was mentioned that Sky can't launch a children's channel themselves as they're bounded by a contract with Viacom due to the Nickelodeon UK joint venture, this is true, and in 1996 before Fox Kids launched (100% owned by News Corp at the time but reduced to 50% following the Saban partnership that was announced that November, News Corp also owned 40% of Sky), Viacom threatened legal action to stop Fox Kids launching in the UK, but nothing came of it. There was also another Viacom/Sky conflict that flared up in 2001 when News Corp wanted to buy Saban's 50% in Fox Kids, as Saban wanted out of the venture. News Corp didn't buy Saban's half and then Fox Kids (and Saban Entertainment) was subsequently sold to Disney that autumn.

https://www.telecompaper.com/news/viacom...ork--91194
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/...000334.txt
https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/news-corp...41.article

[London Lite]

No, it didn't. Trouble actually launched on Bravo's frequency a few months before TCC closed down.

Indeed, Trouble took most if not all of TCC's teenage content, leaving TCC as a channel for younger children.

[ChipperBird]

Undun was pretty interesting to me, being someone who had acquired a whole ton of Fox Kids/Jetix content, as Sky One was essentially the British Fox in format but name.

Interestingly, there was plans for TCC to turn into Fox Kids as News Corp started to take interest in taking shares (49%) but it fell through and with Sky being 40% owned by News Corp at the time, they were able to launch Fox Kids due to the close Fox relationship. Watching clips of Undun, you can see strong Fox Kids influence in it's branding.

Sky One still aired some kids shows later on (they were lucky with some of their acquisitions such as Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!), but nothing on the scale of Undun. As for Fox Kids trying to buy TCC or buying a stake in the channel, Fox Kids also bought Minimax in Spain around that time. TCC had such a strange death (especially considering it lasted longer in Scandinavia and Cable and Wireless continued carriage for a short while), that was another thing I've wrote about on the wiki, as I've unearthed a few things about was going on back then. https://regularcapital-audiovisual-resea...ed_in_1998

It could of been worse in theory, it's interesting to note that Fox Kids got the Donkey Kong CGI cartoon, but I wonder if they were given an option to pick up the yet-unknown Pokemon series as part of that relationship. They didn't (and I recall word at the time that Disney passed on the show too) - which gave Sky One it's one major kids hit outside of Dream Team for the longest time, everything else didn't really hit on the same level for them.

Yeah, you either had to have Sky's Movie package or pay for Disney Channel as a standalone package, although the standalone option came later after several complaints were made to the ITC (now Ofcom). Everyone else had to settle with Diggit (or before Diggit existed, Wake Up in the Wild Room and The Disney Club) on GMTV. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/itc-su...el--113779

I had Disney Channel on a few occasions during its premium era, that was either when we had Sky Movies or those free weekends Disney used to do.

I had family and friends who could afford the Movies/Disney package and it was something of a luxury. During that era you had live studio presenting between shows after school and more of the cartoons + usually breaks were for long-form promos for the latest Disney film or attraction. But then Disney Time on ITV also did the same thing back in the day.

The upside of the GMTV option is one ep or two a week for shows meaning it was much easier to see a whole run (assuming a show wasn't dropped for something else).

I just see Disney+ as Disney's pay-TV offering becoming fully premium again. In 2006, Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney became basic channels, but the movies (and some cartoons as Toon Disney also closed) moved to Disney Cinemagic which was premium, then Cinemagic closed and Sky Movies Disney launched. One way or the other, you still had to pay extra to see all of Disney's offering on TV.

Disney's market and aims just evolved, as most of this took place after Eisner was forced to step down in favour of recently retired CEO Bob Iger. They moved towards the LA dramas and movies, which really took off with Hannah Montana and High School Musical. It made sense to make those more accessible and move the legacy stuff onto the premium channels. With Toon/Cinemagic Disney put the "good stuff" on those channels and notably removed most of that once both channels became just parts of the Kids package on Sky.

I like 90's DC but sad fact is that the live action era made more of the money apparently so...it's the road they took.

The one thing that hasn't changed ever is Disney liking to dictate control over it's properties. From the limited home video releases to walled off TV channels so they could avoid being dictated to about content. Disney+ is just an evolution of all that really for better or worse.

[Kunst]

Yeah, no problem with the fact Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney went to the kids package, these channels had to compete with the likes of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, even if I have fond memories about the nightly movies (yeah, I live in Italy and I got DC Italy, but both DC UK and DC Italy were top notch family channels back then)
I got no beef with Disney Cinemagic either

But they shouldn't have denatured its channel SO much.

It's the quality of the schedule and the programmes I had a problem with, but at that time, DC UK didn't have a say, against DC US.
The US Disney department wanted their Disney operations to look the same or almost so outside of the US, which was clear starting in 2002-2003 with the first bounce rebrand (which I liked BTW), culminating between the 2005 and 2006 with the drop of live presentation in most of the world and the various schedule changes.

But still, DC UK didn't have to drop most of its presentation during that time, no ident and a poor menu replacing it (mostly 2006 to 2008), with many mistakes and so on, which was quite strange for UK TV
DC Italy had a much better "3D bounce" presentation back then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9-Nn8aDoNM

[JAS84]

It could of been worse in theory, it's interesting to note that Fox Kids got the Donkey Kong CGI cartoon, but I wonder if they were given an option to pick up the yet-unknown Pokemon series as part of that relationship. They didn't (and I recall word at the time that Disney passed on the show too) - which gave Sky One it's one major kids hit outside of Dream Team for the longest time, everything else didn't really hit on the same level for them.

I'm not sure how that connects to Donkey Kong Country - Pokemon isn't even from the same company, DKC was made by Nelvana, not 4Kids who initially dubbed Pokemon.

I suspect Fox Kids were not interested, as they'd be getting Digimon a few months later.

[Blubatt]

What I find so interesting about the international channels (the ones that originate from America) is the difference between the services. Even today, broadcasting rights for different shows can be on two different channels in different countries. I would have thought this would be less of a thing in this day and age. Case and point, Power Rangers. In the UK, they have aired on FOX Kids, CITV (Both as a program on the old Children's block, and the CITV Channel), then it was on Jetix, and then it sort of meandered a bit on different channels. I think its on POP Max now (formerly Kix).

And there's another thing, The POP channels feel like they are that channel where all the programming that no one else wants just gets dumped, or bought for a very cheap price. Never liked the POP Channels, they are very cheap

[Kunst]

And they used to be even worse..

[JetixFann450]

On the topic of multi-channel kids television networks, I find it quite ironic that TCC's old address would often re-direct you to Sky's offerings at the time from 2006 onwards. Sort of a coincidence Sky would inevitably buy out the company managing TCC (Flextech/Living TV Group) in the same way Disney predicted their 20th Century Fox buyout by buying it's ill-fated Fox Family division?

[JAS84]

What I find so interesting about the international channels (the ones that originate from America) is the difference between the services. Even today, broadcasting rights for different shows can be on two different channels in different countries. I would have thought this would be less of a thing in this day and age. Case and point, Power Rangers. In the UK, they have aired on FOX Kids, CITV (Both as a program on the old Children's block, and the CITV Channel), then it was on Jetix, and then it sort of meandered a bit on different channels. I think its on POP Max now (formerly Kix).

Power Rangers has aired (this should be in order) on Sky One, ITV, Fox Kids/Jetix, CITV channel, Disney XD, Nickelodeon, Channel 5, Kix/Pop Max (repeats of old seasons only), Pop (new episodes) and Netflix. For some reason Nick UK dropped it, which is why it's now on Pop, despite it still airing on Nick in the US.

Power Rangers changed owners a few times, and thus changed networks in the US as well. Fox Kids (when it was owned by Saban Entertainment), ABC Family (after Disney took over Saban), Toon Disney/Jetix, ABC, Nickelodeon (after Disney sold the franchise back to Haim Saban), Netflix (after the franchise was sold to Hasbro).

On the topic of multi-channel kids television networks, I find it quite ironic that TCC's old address would often re-direct you to Sky's offerings at the time from 2006 onwards. Sort of a coincidence Sky would inevitably buy out the company managing TCC (Flextech/Living TV Group) in the same way Disney predicted their 20th Century Fox buyout by buying it's ill-fated Fox Family division?

Fox didn't actually own Fox Family. Saban had the majority share.

[OldSkoollCITV]

Considering Carlton launched Carlton Kids for ONdigital, I’m surprised GSkyB never launched the kids channel called Granada Kids. It might had launched on Sky Analogue not on the day one of Granada Sky network but on the day that Granada Good Life became Granada Breeze.

I’m surprised that given that L!VE TV was the milestone in TV history, they never dabbed into kids programming. CL!VE TV (Children’s L!VE TV) could have been a kids block that ran from before and after school and during weekend mornings.

I know Challenge showed kids game shows, they brought Knightmare then later got Fun House as well as Finders Keepers. Challenge’s kids game shows output never had the separate branding though. It would have been nice to have something like Junior Challenge.

[JAS84]

L!VE TV? Kids shows? hock: Yeah, that was never going to happen. That's the channel famous for Topless Darts!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L!VE_TV

[RegularCapital]

The News Bunny was probably the closest thing to kids programming on L!VE TV.