Disney Jr.

History

Origins

Main article: Playhouse Disney

The Walt Disney Company first attempted to launch a 24-hour subscription channel for preschoolers in the United States, when the company announced plans to launch Playhouse Disney as a television channel, named after Disney Channel's daytime programming block of the same name, which launched on the channel on February 1, 1999 (airing during the morning hours seven days a week, with the weekday blocks lasting until the early afternoon). Plans for the United States network were ultimately canceled. However, channels using the Playhouse Disney moniker were launched in other countries internationally.

The development of Disney Junior began on May 26, 2010, when Disney–ABC Television Group announced the launch of the channel as a pay television service, which would compete with other subscription channels targeted primarily at preschool-aged children in addition to the Playhouse Disney branded blocks and channels being rebranded under Disney Junior.

The flagship channel in the United States intended to replace Soapnet, a Disney-owned channel featuring daytime soap operas seen on the major broadcast networks (including sister network ABC) and reruns of primetime drama series, due to the continued decline in popularity and quantity of soap operas on broadcast television, along with the growth of video on demand services (including the online streaming availability for soap operas) and digital video recorders that negated the need for a linear channel devoted to the genre.

Network and block launches

Disney Junior first launched as a programming block on Disney Channel on February 14, 2011. The Disney Junior channel was originally scheduled to launch in January 2012, but on July 28, 2011, the Disney-ABC Television Group postponed the channel's launch date to an unspecified date in early 2012, then on January 9, 2012, the Disney-ABC Television Group announced that Soapnet's closing date for most cable providers was scheduled for March 22, 2012. Disney Junior's 24-hour subscription channel counterpart officially launched the following day on March 23, at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time. Programming featured on the channel's initial lineup included Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Doc McStuffins (which premiered around this time); the channel also aired new episodes of the short-form series A Poem Is. as well as the weekend movie block, the Magical World of Disney Junior.

Although Disney Junior had replaced the channel space held by Soapnet on most providers, an automated feed of that channel continued to broadcast for providers that had not yet reached agreements to carry Disney Junior, or to prevent losing subscribers due to the network's closure. These included some providers such as Cox Communications, Optimum, DirecTV, Verizon FiOS, and Time Warner Cable, which continued to carry Soapnet while having added the Disney Junior channel onto their channel lineups on a different channel space. Soapnet's operations continued sixteen months later than had been originally planned, until the network's shutdown on December 31, 2013, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

In 2012, Disney Junior launched a movie night anthology as the Magical World of Disney Junior. The morning block of Disney Jr. programming on Disney Channel itself is currently known as Mickey Mornings.

The network's visual identity changed in June 2024, with a new logo shortening 'Junior' to the abbreviated form, 'Jr.'.

Television carriage

At its launch, Disney Junior was initially available to subscribers of Xfinity, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision, Bright House Networks, and Verizon FiOS; other providers would sign carriage agreements to run the network following its launch.

Disney–ABC Television Group announced that it had reached a distribution agreement with the National Cable Television Cooperative to carry Disney Junior, which negotiates carriage deals on behalf of many of America's smaller cable providers.

In December 2012, Cox signed a distribution deal with Disney adding Disney Junior to its cable plans.

On July 13, 2012, DirecTV announced that the Disney Junior network would be added to its lineup the following day on July 14. Industry observers questioned both the unexpected announcement and untraditional weekend launch of the network as being timed to a nine-day carriage dispute between DirecTV and Viacom which lead to Viacom's television channels (including Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. Channel) being temporarily unavailable on the service four days prior as a result of the dispute.

On December 31, 2012, Charter Communications (later purchasing Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks and becoming Spectrum) came to terms with Disney–ABC Television Group on a new wide-ranging multiple-year carriage agreement for ABC, all of the U.S.-based Disney Channels Worldwide and ESPN networks and ABC Family, which included the addition of Disney Junior to Charter systems throughout the first quarter of 2013. The channel was removed from the service on August 31, 2023 as Disney and Spectrum were in dispute for several days, before coming to agreement on September 11 to restore Disney's networks to their service while removing several others, including Disney Junior.

On January 15, 2013, AT&T U-verse also reached a deal with The Walt Disney Company on a new wide-ranging multi-year agreement to carry the Disney–ABC Television Group family of networks and ESPN, which included the addition of Disney Junior.

Dish Network, the last major television provider to had not signed a carriage deal for Disney Junior, added the channel on April 10, 2014; after a long period of acrimony and a six-month extension of their previous carriage agreement with The Walt Disney Company for a few select networks (some of which were not available in HD, partly as a result of a 2011 dispute with the company), Dish and Disney came to full terms on carrying all of Disney-ABC's networks in both standard and high definition on March 3, 2014, with the resolution of legal issues involving Dish's Hopper DVR system, which also included streaming rights for the networks as part of Dish's IPTV streaming service Sling TV.

Programming

Main article: List of programs broadcast by Disney Jr.

Disney Junior Night Light (block)

Disney Junior Night Light is the former name of Disney Jr. channel's overnight programming block, running daily from 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific. The block, which debuted on September 4, 2012, was sponsored by the Disney-owned parenting site Babble, consisting of short-form programs intended for co-viewing among parents and their children. Features seen as part of the block included Picture This (a drawing segment), Sesh Tales (a segment featuring costumed finger puppets with twists on traditional fairy tales) and That's Fresh (a segment featuring cooking tips aimed at parents, presented by celebrity chef Helen Cavallo). Additional series under development at the block's launch included a photography series, a series that follows parents through the day their new baby comes home after being born, and a show about stay-at-home dads. Since 2017, Disney Jr.'s overnight programming has run unbranded and without the Night Light continuity.

Related services

International

Main article: Disney Jr. (international)

Disney Jr. also broadcast globally, but some channels have been shutting down since 2020 to prioritize Disney+, which features its current and library programming.

References

References

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