Disney XD (Europe, Middle East and Africa)

Disney XD
Launched 1 April 1999
(as Fox Kids Europe)
1 January 2005
(as Jetix Europe, Middle East and North Africa)
3 October 2009
(as Disney XD Europe, Middle East and Africa)
Owned by The Walt Disney Company
Picture format 16:9 576i (SDTV)
Slogan "The future is now!"
Country United Kingdom
Romania (formerly)
Russia (formerly)
Broadcast area Turkey
Balkans
Middle East
North Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa
Sister channel(s) Disney Junior
Disney Channel
Website Disney XD South Africa
Disney XD Turkey
Availability
Satellite
OSN Channel 352
Digiturk Channel 166
DStv Channel 304

Disney XD is a European-managed digital cable and satellite TV channel owned by Disney Channels Worldwide that was launched on 3 October 2009. Most of its programming consists on Disney XD original series and acquired programming from third parties. The channel was originally launched in 1 April 1999 as Fox Kids and rebranded on 1 January 2005 as Jetix.

History

Under the name of Fox Kids, the channel was first launched in Central and Eastern Europe on 1 April 1999 as an 'Initial Public Offering' channel[1] available at first in English, Romanian and Russian. Its operation offices were located in Bucharest and in Moscow at that time. The channel was expanded to include Turkey with a Turkish audio track in May 2000[2] and it was first available on digital satellite TV service Digiturk on that same month, and then on cable TV provider Turkish Telecom on July of the same year.[2] On November 2000, Fox Kids Europe expanded its coverage area to the Middle East by launching an English-language dedicated subfeed from the channel for its Arab audience on satellite TV platform Orbit (later Orbit Showtime Network, currently OSN) in countries like Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, among others.[3] Israel was excluded from receiving this feed, due to plans of launching a fully localised channel in Hebrew that eventually were concreted in February 2001.[3]

In March 2004, the Pan-European Fox Kids feed was split in two: one centred in Bucharest, airing in English, Romanian and Russian and broadcasting for the Balkan countries, Russia and CIS, and another one headquartered in Istanbul, airing in Turkish and English for the Republic of Turkey, the Middle East region and North Africa.

The Eastern feed of Jetix Central and Eastern Europe, by 2009, was already airing English, Romanian, Russian and Bulgarian audio tracks simultaneously and had Serbo-Croatian subtitles for its Adria audience. However, this feed, headquartered in Bucharest and Moscow, splits up, thus creating two different Jetix channels, each one with their own operation centres. This was a result of the Russian media authorities not giving authorisation to The Walt Disney Company for launching a country-shared Disney Channel on Russian territory. Due to this situation, the split resulted in a newly, short-lived Russian-localised Jetix channel only covering Russia and CIS countries, while the remaining Jetix feed, centred in Bucharest, stopped carrying its Russian audio track and also stopped airing in the Balkan countries, ditching its Serbo-Croatian subtitles track. Because of that, Jetix Turkey and the Middle East takes its place on the ex-Yugoslav countries and starts offering Serbo-Croatian subtitle tracks as well. The result of the replacement of the now-splitted Eastern European feed of Jetix to the Turkish-Middle Eastern one was because Disney's decision to rebrand the Jetix European networks to Disney Channel in territories where the channel hasn't been introduced, and so included the Bucharest- and Moscow- headquartered feeds. As the ex-Yugoslav countries were already covered by the Middle Eastern variant of the Disney Channel airing in English with Serbo-Croatian subtitles, the move was made and on 3 October 2009, the Istanbul-based Jetix feed was finally rebranded as Disney XD, while the rest of the feeds were rebranded to Disney Channel.

The channel was not available in the whole Sub-Saharan Africa region until 12 May 2011, when South African satellite service DStv added the channel to their channels' schedule.

Currently, the channel is available on OSN for subscribers in the Middle East and North Africa, and on Digiturk for subscribers in Turkey. The channel features two audio tracks, one in English for the whole EMEA region, and another one in Turkish for the Republic of Turkey.

Current programming

Original live-action

Live-action

Title Premiere date Current season Source(s)
Kirby Buckets July 2015 2 [4]
Gamer's Guide to Pretty Much Everything 2016 2
K.C. Undercover September 10, 2015 2
Walk the Prank March 27, 2017 2
Mech-X4 April 24, 2017 1
O11ce May 15, 2017 1

Reruns

Title Premiere date Finale date Date(s) reran
Gravity Falls 2016 2017 2017 – present
Lab Rats February 27, 2012 April 2016 2016–present
Kickin It 2012 2015 2016–present
Mighty Med 2014 2016 2016–present
Pair of Kings 2011 2014 2014-2015, 2016, 2017-present
Lab Rats: Elite Force 2016 2017 2017–present
Ultimate Spider-Man 2013 March 19, 2017 March 20, 2017 – present

Co-productions

Title Premiere date Current season Source(s)
Supa Strikas 2013 5

Marvel Universe

Title Premiere date Current season Source(s)
Avengers Assemble 2013 3 [5]
Guardians of the Galaxy 2016 2 [4]

Original animated series

Title Premiere date Current season Source(s)
Milo Murphy's Law March 18, 2017 1
Star Wars Rebels 2014 3
Penn Zero: Part-Time Hero August 2015 2
Star vs. the Forces of Evil 2015 3
Pickle and Peanut 2016 1
Future-Worm! December 8, 2016 1 [6]

Short

Title Premiere date Current season Source(s)
Two More Eggs April 2017 2

Acquired live-action programmes

Acquired animated series

Mini-series

Current films

Films usually air weekend mornings at 10:00 CET/12:00 CAT/13:00 KSA

Disney XD Original Movies

Disney Channel Original Movies

Pokémon

Disney feature films

Other films

Former programming

References

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