Disney Channel Bulgaria

**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 (in both of which Giorgio Stock is part of the company management). Like Jetix CEE, Disney Channel will be distributed in Bulgaria by Media Link, who will also provide translation for the channel's series.

## Founding and 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.

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 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.

## Disney rebrand

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) will 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, which appeared on Jetix CEE on July 8, simply said "coming soon", but on August 2, new promos appeared that stated the launch date as September 19, 2009. It was also announced to the media a few days later. The Bulgarian and Romanian versions of the Disney Channel broadcast as a single video feed with two different audio channels for each language.

## Shows

*Shows marked with an asterisk (\*) are translated in Bulgarian. The rest are broadcast in English. The studio which dubbed the show may be noted in brackets.*

Disney series:

* Aaron Stone \* (Media Link)
* American Dragon:Jake Long\* (Media Link -(5 episodes of season 2 currently air in English)
* Arle \* (Media Link)
* Brandy & Mr. Whiskers \* *(from December)* (Media Link)
* Hannah Montana\* (Alexandra Audio - December)
* The Heart of the Jungle \* (Media Link)
* JONAS\* (Dolly Media Studio - coming soon, dub is ready)
* Kim Possible \* (Alexandra Audio)
* Lilo and Stitch \* (Alexandra Audio)
* Moners Sixton 2590 \* (Alexandra Audio)
* Phineas and Ferb \* (season 1 - by Media Link [voice-over] and Dolly Media Studio [synchronized voices])
* Raffina And Rulue Adventures \* *(from December)* (Media Link)
* Sonny with a Chance \* *(from December)* (Media Link)
* The Emperor's New School \* (Media Link)
* The Replacements \* (Media Link, 2 episodes air in English)
* The Suite Life of Zack and Cody \* (Media Link)
* Wizards of Waverly Place \* (BNT, Media Link)
* Zeke and Luther \* (Media Link)

Jetix series:

* The Backyardigans 2.0 (Media Link)
* H2O: Just Add Water \* (Media Link)
* Jimmy Cool \* *(new series)* (Media Link)
* Kid vs Kat \* *(new series)* (Media Link)
* LazyTown \* (Media Link)
* Monster Buster Club \* (Media Link)
* Secret Mission: Zero Gravity \* (Media Link)
* Totally Spies \* (Media Link)

Movies:

* Camp Rock \* (Media Link)
* Cow Belles \* (Media Link)
* Finding Nemo \* (Dolly Media Studio)
* High School Musical \* (Media Link)
* High School Musical 2 \* (Media Link)
* Princess Protection Program
* Star Bleech \* (Dolly Media Studio)

Playhouse Disney:

* Alexei: The Series \* (Dolly Media Studio)
* Bunnytown \* (BNT)
* Handy Manny \* (Dolly Media Studio, incomplete)
* Little Einsteins \* (Dolly Media Studio, incomplete)
* Mickey Mouse Clubhouse \* (BNT [voice-over], Alexandra Audio [synchronized voices])
* My Friends Tigger and Pooh \* (BNT [voice-over])

## Translation status

Currently, no station promos are translated into Bulgarian. Only films with older translations and a few selected new ones are available in Bulgarian. The translation of some episodes of *Wizards of Waverly Place'* was taken from the Bulgarian National Television, while others are dubbed by Media Link. Furthermore, some *Jimmy Cool* and *Kid vs. Kat* shorts that were translated on Jetix are at this time only broadcast in English for unknown reasons. For now, only advertisements in Bulgarian are shown in the commercial brakes.

In October 2009, Dolly Media Studio (a well-known Bulgarian dubbing company) began producing synchronized voice translations of certain shows. They have also been the Bulgarian dubbing studio for Disney animated features for several years. The first episodes translated by them (from Phineas and Ferb, Handy Manny, Little Einsteins) appeared in mid-November 2009, and more are expected to come later. It has also been seen that Disney aim to replace the old voice-over dub of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, with a few episodes made available also in November. These translations, however, take a longer time to produce and the latest episodes of some shows may remain untranslated or with an old dub at least until December or January.

## See also

* Jetix
* Jetix Play
* Disney XD
* Playhouse Disney

## References

1. ↑ http://www.waidev2.com/php/PDFS/STUDIO\_v2\_Asset\_Library/3490---PDF.pdf *Jetix Europe NV - Extraordinary General Meeting - Minutes of Meeting*, 23 June 2009
2. ↑ French Jetix becomes Disney XD. Broadband TV News (2009-02-16).
3. ↑ Jetix France rebrands as Disney XD. C21 Media (2009-02-17).
4. ↑ Jetix to become Disney - *Broadband TV News*, by Chris Dziadul, published and retrieved: 2009-05-26
5. ↑ Disney Channel тръгва в България от 19 септември Ekip News/news.dir.bg, 2009-08-04

## External links

* Disney Channel Romania website (in Romanian)
* TeleManiac Disney Channel forum (in Bulgarian)