Disney Channel is a European-managed pay television channel owned by Disney Channels Worldwide, a unit of the Direct-to-Consumer & International division of The Walt Disney Company. It currently broadcasts in all ex-Yugoslav countries, Albania, Greece, the Middle East and Africa. It originally launched on 2 April 1997 as a Middle Eastern-only channel, but began to roll out in other countries beginning in 2005. It previously used to cover Poland and Turkey with their respective audio tracks until 2010 and 2012 respectively, when two localised feeds were launched for those countries.
History
The channel was launched on 2 April 1997 on satellite provider Orbit. At first, it was available only in English, but on 1 April 1998, a separate Arabic feed was added. Cartoons were dubbed in Arabic, while the live-action shows and most of live-action movies were subtitled. Disney Channel Middle East was then picked up by satellite provider Showtime in fall 2001. The channel featured the logos in two versions until June 2003 when it adopted the 2002 US Disney Channel logo. The channel was managed by Disney Channel Asia in Singapore until December 2004, when due to a new marketing strategy, it started to be managed from the United Kingdom. Somewhere at that time, both the Arabic and the English feed of the channel were merged. In consequence, on 3 January 2005 Disney Channel Middle East started to simulcast Disney Channel Scandinavia, including its schedule and the prints of the series and movies for this feed. Then on November/December 2005 Disney Channel Scandinavia and Middle East started to add dub credits to the series and movies through subtitles. Disney Channel Scandinavia and Middle East started gradually becoming individual feeds in 2006 starting with different rotation of films, however it didn't stop Arab satellite provider Orbit to add a Swedish audio track to the Middle Eastern feed on 16 April 2007. The Middle Eastern feed became a Pan-European network as the channel was launched in Sub-Saharan Africa on 25 September 2006, in Poland on 2 December 2006, on Turkey on 29 April 2007, in ex-Yugoslav countries and on Greece on 7 November 2009. In fall 2009, when the feed separation from Disney Channel Scandinavia was complete, the Middle East feed started to share promotions and events with Disney Channel Central and Eastern Europe. On 1 August 2010, the channel stopped broadcasting in Poland due to the launch of a localised Polish feed of Disney Channel. On 12 January 2012, Disney Channel EMEA stopped broadcasting in Turkey with the launch of a localised Turkish feed of the network. The channel adopted a new logo and underwent a brand design on 21 July 2014. In 2015, Disney Channel EMEA switched its aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9. In 2017, a high-definition feed of the channel was launched. An Arabic subtitle track was added for the broadcast of English-language live-action series, including credits, which is not available in the SD feed.
