History of Disney Channel

In 1977, Walt Disney Productions executive Jim Jimirro brought forth the idea of a cable television network that would feature television and film material from the studio.[1] Since the company was focusing on the development of the Epcot Center at Walt Disney World, Disney chairman Card Walker turned down the proposal.[2][3] Instead, they made a deal with HBO to air a select number of Disney films, cartoons, and specials, including a live production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Radio City Music Hall. However, Disney revived the idea in November 1981,[4] entering into a partnership with the satellite unit of Group W (which had sold its 50% ownership stake in one of The Disney Channel's early rivals, Showtime, to Viacom around the same time); however, Group W would ultimately drop out of the intended joint venture that September, due to disagreements over the channel's creative control and financial obligations that would have required Group W to pay a 50% share of the channel's start-up costs.[3]

Despite losing Group W as a partner, The Disney Channel continued on with its development – now solely under the oversight of Walt Disney Productions, and under the leadership of the channel's first president Alan Wagner, Walt Disney Productions formally announced the launch of its family-oriented cable channel in early 1983. Disney later invested US$11 million to acquiring space on two transponders of the Hughes Communications satellite Galaxy 1, and spent US$20 million on purchasing and developing programming.[3] The concept of a premium service aimed at a family audience – which Walt Disney Productions would choose to develop The Disney Channel as – had first been attempted by HBO, which launched Take 2 in 1979 (the service, which was HBO's first attempt at a spin-off niche service (predating Cinemax's launch in August 1980), would shut down after only a few months on the air), and was followed by the 1981 launch of the Group W-owned Home Theater Network (which was the only premium channel that strictly competed with The Disney Channel for that demographic for much of the 1980s, until the 1987 launch of Festival).

The Disney Channel launched nationally as a premium channel on April 18, 1983, at 7:00 a.m. Eastern Time.[5] The first program ever aired on the channel was also its first original series, Good Morning, Mickey!, which presented Disney animated shorts.[6] At the time of its launch, The Disney Channel's programming aired for 16 hours each day from 7:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time[5] (comparatively, its competitors HBO, Cinemax, Showtime, The Movie Channel and Spotlight all had been operating on 24-hour programming schedules for a few years at the time). By the fall of 1983, the channel was available to more than 532,000 subscribers in the United States;[7] this total would increase to 611,000 subscribers in December of that year.[8]

For its subscribers, the channel provided a monthly (and later bi-monthly) program guide/magazine called The Disney Channel Magazine, which in addition to carrying listings for the channel's programming, had also carried feature stories on upcoming programs (the magazine also lent its name to a series of interstitials seen during promotional breaks on the channel that provided behind-the-scenes looks at programming).[5] The Disney Channel Magazine ceased publication in early 1997 and was replaced by Behind the Ears (a print magazine which also shared its name with another series of behind-the-scenes interstitials that aired on the channel from 1997 to 2000) as the channel began primarily operating as a commercial-free basic channel.[9]

As a premium channel, The Disney Channel often ran free previews of five days to one week in length four times annually, as well as two periodic weekend-only previews (with ads targeted to cable and satellite customers who were not subscribers to the channel); this resulted in The Disney Channel offering more preview events each calendar year during its tenure as a pay service than HBO, Cinemax and Showtime had run during that timeframe. In April 1984, the channel extended its daily programming to 18 hours (from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time), with the addition of two hours onto its late night schedule.[10] On December 1, 1986, The Disney Channel began broadcasting 24 hours a day.[11]

Disney Channel logo from 1983-1997

By September 1983, The Disney Channel was available on cable providers in all 50 U.S. states. In October 1983, the channel debuted its first made-for-cable movie, Tiger Town, which earned the channel a CableACE Award.[8] The first "classic" Disney animated film to be broadcast on the channel, Alice in Wonderland, premiered on the network in January 1984. By January 1985, the channel's programming reached 1.75 million subscribers, at which time the channel had reached profitability.

Sometime in 1986, (Colossal) Pictures produced on-air identification bumpers featuring Mickey Mouse (his gloved hands, and sometimes his feet, only visible) and the logo, be them animated or live action.

In August 1989, the channel launched a series of interstitial segments called The Disney Channel Salutes The American Teacher; the channel subsequently began telecasting the American Teacher Awards in November 1991.[8] By January 1990, The Disney Channel had about five million subscribers nationwide. In May of that year, The Disney Channel won its first Daytime Emmy Awards for the original made-for-cable film Looking for Miracles, the documentary Calgary '88: 16 Days of Glory, and the special A Conversation with... George Burns, as well as its first Peabody Award for the television film Mother Goose Rock 'n' Rhyme.[8]

On September 1, 1990, TCI's Montgomery, Alabama, system became the first cable provider to carry the channel as a basic cable service.[8] In 1991, eight additional cable providers volunteered to move the channel to their expanded basic cable tiers, with the first to make the transition (as a test run) being Jones Intercable's systems in Fort Myers and Broward County, Florida.[12][13] Other cable providers eventually began moving the channel to their basic tiers, either experimentally or on a full-time basis.[13] Even as major providers such as Cox Communications and Marcus Cable began offering The Disney Channel on their basic tiers, executives for The Walt Disney Company denied that the channel had plans to convert into an ad-supported basic service, stating that the move from premium to basic cable on some systems was part of a five-year "hybrid" strategy that allowed providers to offer the channel in either form.[14]

In 1991, The Disney Channel tested a two-channel multiplex service on two cable systems.[15] HBO, Cinemax[16] and Showtime also launched their own multiplex services that same year. However, The Disney Channel would not make its own multiplex service permanent, unlike the others. By 1992, a third of the channel's subscriber base were estimated by Nielsen Media Research to be adults that did not have children;[17] and by 1995, its subscriber base expanded to 15 million cable homes,[18] eight million of which paid an additional monthly fee to receive the channel.[19]

In March 1992, the channel debuted the original children's program Adventures in Wonderland, a contemporary live-action adaption of Alice in Wonderland (which, in turn, was based on the novel Alice Through the Looking Glass). In September 1992, the channel began carrying the Disney's Young Musicians Symphony Orchestra series of specials, which aired annually until 1998. In honor of its 10th anniversary, the channel embarked on a 14-city nationwide bus tour starting in April 1993.[8] By January 1995, The Disney Channel was available to 12.6 million subscribers; the period from 1994 to 1995 saw the largest yearly subscriber increase with 4.87 million households with cable television adding the channel. In March 1995, the first international Disney Channel service was launched in Taiwan. That year, the documentary Anne Frank Remembered premiered on the channel; that film would earn an Academy Award for Best Documentary in 1996.[8]

In 1996, veteran cable executive Anne Sweeney was appointed to oversee The Disney Channel as its president; that September as the launch of Disney Channel service in Southeast Asia, the channel began offering a film in primetime each night starting at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, with the expansion of the Sunday Magical World of Disney film block to Monday through Saturday nights; the new primetime schedule launched in September with the pay cable premiere of The Lion King.[8][20]

On April 6, 1997, The Disney Channel underwent a significant rebranding, shortening its name to just "Disney Channel" – though the channel was typically referred to simply as "Disney" in on-air promotions and network identifications until September 2002 – and introducing a new logo designed by Lee Hunt Associates (a black Mickey ear-shaped TV set, though with the introduction of a new graphics package for on-air promotions and IDs during the channel's daytime and evening lineup in 2000, the TV's patterning often varied; early versions of the logo featured people and animated characters appearing within the TV set element of the logo such as a 1930s-era Mickey Mouse).[21][22] The debut of its new on-air look coincided with the cable television premiere of Pocahontas.[8]

The channel continued to transition from a premium service into a basic cable channel around this time, albeit with a similar programming format to the one it carried as a full-fledged pay service. However, the channel began shifting its target audience more toward kids (but continued to cater to family audiences at night),[23] as it decreased the amount of older films it aired, and its music programming shifted focus towards the pre-teen and teenage demographic, incorporating music videos and revamping its concert specials to feature younger musicians popular with that demographic.

Disney Channel initially continued to offer free preview events for pay television providers that continued to carry it as a premium service, but discontinued them altogether within three years of the rebrand.[24] Although many providers still required subscribers to pay an additional monthly fee to view the channel at the time of its decision to incorporate them, Disney Channel also began to air break interruptions within shows, featuring promotions for the channel's programs as well as for feature film and home video releases from Disney.[25] By March 1998, the channel was available to 35 million cable subscribers.

The channel's programming would eventually be split into three distinct blocks: Playhouse Disney, Vault Disney, and Zoog Disney. Playhouse Disney debuted in May 1997, and comprised shows aimed at preschoolers. Its first series to reach wide popularity, Bear in the Big Blue House, made its debut in October 1997 and was named by TV Guide as one of the "top 10 new shows for kids".[8] Vault Disney debuted as a Sunday-only nighttime block in September 1997 and featured older Disney programs such as Zorro,[26] The Mickey Mouse Club and the Walt Disney anthology television series, as well as older television specials and feature films).

Zoog Disney was introduced in August 1998, and was the most distinct of the three blocks,[27] compromising Disney Channel Original Series aimed at preteens and teens. The afternoon-to-late evening lineup was hosted by anthropomorphic robot/alien hybrid characters called the "Zoogs" (who were originally two-dimensional figures, but were redesigned as cel shaded anime-esque figures and given mature voices in 2001) and was designed to encourage viewer interactivity between television and the Internet. The Zoog Disney brand would later expand, with most of the channel's weekend schedule (outside of Vault Disney and Playhouse Disney) becoming part of the "Zoog Weekendz" umbrella block from June 2000 to August 2002.

Original programming on Disney Channel began to ramp up during this period starting with the sitcom Flash Forward, and would increase in the following years with shows like The Famous Jett Jackson in 1998 and So Weird in 1999, and into the early 2000s with Lizzie McGuire – whose star Hilary Duff became the first lead actor or actress in one of the channel's original series to cross over into music through a record deal with co-owned music label Hollywood Records – and Even Stevens – which helped launch the career of its star Shia LaBeouf.

In 1999, Disney Channel placed a mandate to cable operators that continued to carry it as a premium service to move the channel to a basic cable tier or stop carrying it altogether, stipulating that it would not renew carriage agreements with providers (such as Time Warner Cable and Comcast, the last major cable providers to carry the channel as a pay service) that chose to continue offering the network as a premium channel.[28] With the shift towards children as its target audience, some of the off-network programs acquired by the channel during the early-mid 2000s (such as Boy Meets World and later Sister, Sister) began to be edited for content such as profanity and sexual references that were deemed inappropriate for younger audiences.

By 2001, Disney Channel was available to approximately 70 million cable and satellite subscribers, largely consisting of those who had already received the channel through basic cable, as well as the remnants of its pay subscriber base.[29] The music videos and concert specials that the channel had been airing since the 1997 rebrand were dropped by this time, citing the inability to obtain revenue from the artists' CD sales and lack of exclusivity for the videos;[30] soon after, the channel began featuring music videos from artists signed to Disney's in-house record labels Hollywood Records and Walt Disney Records, and songs featured in Disney-produced feature films. In 2001, the channel debuted its first original animated series, The Proud Family; the following year, Disney Channel achieved its first major animated series hit with the premiere of Kim Possible.

Disney Channel's headquarters in Burbank, California, as it appeared in the 2000s (the logo was later removed instead of being replaced with the 2002-era logo)

By 2002, Disney Channel was available in 80 million cable homes nationwide.[31] In early September of that year, Disney Channel began a gradual rebranding, beginning with the discontinuance of the "Zoog" brand from on-air use (though Zoog Disney would continue to exist as a separate website until 2003, when the site's content was consolidated onto Disney Channel's primary website, DisneyChannel.com).

On September 9, the Vault Disney overnight block was replaced by same-day repeats of the channel's original and acquired programs, primarily to contribute to the network's then-upcoming "hip" image. The block's removal resulted in Disney Channel not featuring programs aimed at adults for the first time in its history – with the channel's primetime feature films becoming the only programs that intentionally targeted a broader family audience. As of 2015, Disney Channel is the only major American cable channel aimed at children that does not directly maintain a dual audience of both kids and adults (Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network each feature nighttime programming for families and/or adults). Movies shown during primetime were also reduced from an average of two to three features to only one each night of the week.[32] The channel phased out reality and scripted drama series from its original programming slate, while substantially increasing the channel's reliance on live-action sitcoms and animated series.

On October 7, 2002, Disney Channel introduced a new on-air logo designed by CA Square (using an outline of Mickey Mouse's head as its centerpiece) that would later be adopted by its international sister channels in May 2003, and unveiled a new graphical design to fit the network's new look. Moreover, starting in May 2003, the channel began using a series of bumpers that are still used to this day, primarily featuring actors and animated characters from its original programs (and occasionally from Disney's theatrical releases) drawing the channel's logo using a wand (in actuality, a glowstick). Playhouse Disney became the only program block introduced in 1997 to remain on Disney Channel by this point (it was later relaunched as Disney Junior in February 2011). Around this time, Disney Channel's original series began airing as part of corporate sister ABC's Saturday morning children's program block; most of the shows that began airing on the block in 2006 would remain on the network until September 2011, when it was replaced by the Litton Entertainment-produced block Litton's Weekend Adventure.

Anne Sweeney was appointed president of Disney–ABC Television Group in 2004, ultimately helping to remake Disney Channel into "the major profit driver in the company" by the middle of the decade[33] as the channel made major inroads in increasing its overall viewership, while in turn using a strategy – which proved successful – to discover, nurture and aggressively cross-promote teen music stars whose style and image were carefully targeted to the pre-teen and teenage demographic[33] (a strategy that has been de-emphasized in the 2010s). Around that time – as Disney Channel's intended target audience began ranging from preschoolers to young adolescents – the channel began to add viewers outside this target demographic, creating increased competition with Viacom-owned Nickelodeon.

In 2003, Disney Channel premiered its first ever made-for-cable movie musical, The Cheetah Girls, which received a worldwide audience of 84 million viewers. In 2005, That's So Raven (which debuted in January 2003) became the channel's highest-rated series since its transition to basic cable as well as becoming the first original series to run longer than 65 episodes – breaking a highly controversial rule that was implemented in 1998, aimed at limiting increases in production costs for its original programming (the 65-episode rule is no longer enforced, although most series are now usually discontinued after their fourth season at maximum) – Raven eventually became the channel's longest-running original series at 100 episodes and the first to spawn a spin-off series (Cory in the House). The Suite Life of Zack & Cody made its debut in March 2005, and also became a hit for the channel.

The earlier success of The Cheetah Girls led to the creation of other music-themed original programming: 2006 saw the debut of the hit original movie High School Musical (on January 20) and the series Hannah Montana (on March 24), the latter of which launched the career of its star Miley Cyrus (who starred opposite her father, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, in the series). On July 28 of that year, the channel saw the debut of its first multiple-series crossover, That's So Suite Life of Hannah Montana (which involved That's So Raven, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and Hannah Montana).

In 2007, the channel began dropping most of its acquired programs, and also began to incorporate rotating hour-long blocks of its original series and other programs during the daytime hours. It also moved first-run episodes of its original series on weekends from late afternoon/early evening into primetime. In addition, the channel began putting less emphasis on its animated series, moving some of them from primetime to graveyard slots, while substantially increasing its reliance on teen-oriented sitcoms. Despite this, 2007 saw the debut of Phineas and Ferb, the first original animated series (and first long-form original series) to be broadcast in HD. On March 19, 2008, Disney Channel launched a high-definition simulcast of the network.

Two other series premiered that year: the That's So Raven spin-off Cory in the House (which ended after two seasons) and the more successful Wizards of Waverly Place (which surpassed That's So Raven in October 2011 to become Disney Channel's longest-running original series, and ending its run in January 2012 at 106 episodes). High School Musical 2 premiered on August 17 of that year, becoming the highest-rated non-sports program in the history of basic cable and the highest-rated made-for-cable movie premiere on record (as well as the highest-rated television program – broadcast or cable – of Summer 2007) with 17.2 million viewers.[34]

In 2008, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody spin-off The Suite Life on Deck (which became the #1 series among children between ages of 6- and 12-years-old in 2008) premiered, along with two more music-based original made-for-TV movies: Camp Rock and The Cheetah Girls: One World.[35]

Capitalizing on the rising star status of the Jonas Brothers and Demi Lovato following Camp Rock, two series respectively starring both acts premiered in 2009: Jonas (which was renamed Jonas L.A. for its second season before being canceled) and Sonny with a Chance (Lovato also co-starred in the original movie Princess Protection Program, which premiered in June). The August debut of the original film Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie became the highest-rated cable program of 2009 (excluding sporting events), premiering to 11.4 million viewers and ranking as the second highest-rated original movie premiere in Disney Channel's history, behind High School Musical 2. (A one-hour Wizards reunion special, Wizards Return: Alex vs. Alex would later premiere in March 2013.) The July 17 premiere of the Wizards/Suite Life on Deck/Hannah Montana crossover special Wizards on Deck with Hannah Montana also beat out its cable and broadcast competition that night with 9.1 million viewers (effectively making the Wizards and On Deck episodes featured in the special the highest-rated episodes of both series at that point).

In 2010, Good Luck Charlie debuted as Disney Channel's first original sitcom targeted at family audiences, while Fish Hooks and Shake It Up also made their debuts. That year also saw the premiere of Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam among the four original movies premiering that year, along with two made-for-TV movies that were co-produced with Canadian specialty channels (Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars, in conjunction with Movie Central and The Movie Network; and 16 Wishes, with Family Channel). On November 19, 2010, Disney Channel began offering an alternate Spanish-language audio feed (carried either as a separate second audio program track or sold by cable and satellite providers in the form of a separate channel that is part of a Spanish-language programming package). Hannah Montana and The Suite Life on Deck both ended in 2011; Sonny with a Chance, meanwhile, was retooled for its third season as So Random! – focusing on the show within the show – after Demi Lovato decided not to return to the series to focus on her music career, following her treatment for bulimia and bipolar disorder (the So Random! spin-off series was canceled after one season in May 2012).[36] Four other series (A.N.T. Farm, PrankStars, Jessie and Austin & Ally) also debuted that year, along with six made for-TV movies (most notably The Suite Life Movie, Lemonade Mouth and Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension). With the channel using the summer, winter and fall on-air appearances, it began to collaborate with Hallmark Cards to promote greeting cards of its original programming.

In 2012, Disney Channel ended Nickelodeon's 17-year run as the highest-rated cable channel in the United States, placing its first ever win in total-day viewership among all cable networks as measured by ACNielsen.[37] In June of that year, The Walt Disney Company announced that it would stop advertising or promoting food or beverage products that do not meet strict nutritional guidelines on Disney Channel or its other media properties aimed at children by 2015, purportedly becoming the first media company to take such a stance on stopping the marketing of junk food products to kids (due to its commercial-free format, such advertising appears only in the form of underwriter sponsorships during promotional breaks).[38] In January of that year, Disney aired the premiere of the DCOM Frenemies (film). In February 2012, Disney aired another DCOM - Radio Rebel. In June 2012, Disney aired its third DCOM - Let It Shine, along with the premiere of the animated series Gravity Falls. In October 2012, Disney premiered the sitcom Dog with a Blog as well as the original film Girl vs. Monster.

On July 1, 2012, Disney Channel began providing Descriptive Video Service audio in compliance with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010, which required network owned-and-operated stations and affiliates in the 25 largest television markets as well as the five highest-rated cable and satellite channels (including Disney Channel) to offer audio descriptions for the blind. Since July 1, 2012, Disney Channel now presents an on-screen mark at the beginning of certain programming on their schedule to refer that the program has audio description for visually-impaired, in order to comply with the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010. Certain episodes of Gravity Falls, Austin and Ally, Good Luck Charlie and Phineas and Ferb show the AD))) mark and a 2-tone sound repeated 3 times at the beginning of the episode to notice the audio description track available through the SAP feed. Disney Junior airs the AD)) mark and the intended SAP track on newer episodes of Little Einsteins. (ABC airs this mark of the bottom-left corner of the screen.)[39]

On July 14, 2012, Disney Channel announced its first television collaboration with Marvel Entertainment (which was acquired by The Walt Disney Company in 2009), in the form of a crossover special that aired on August 16, 2013 called Phineas and Ferb: Mission Marvel featuring characters from Phineas and Ferb and the Marvel Universe, a new animated series, Wander Over Yonder debuted after that.[40]

On February 15 and 16, 2014, Disney Channel announced the future of the animated series airing on the channel at the time; it announced that Gravity Falls and Wander Over Yonder would move to Disney XD but will still air episodes on Disney Channel as part of "Disney XD on Disney Channel",[41] and that Phineas and Ferb would go on hiatus, with its production having already been suspended.[42] Around April 2014, Disney Channel also completely stopped airing the Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, and Pluto cartoon shorts that would air as part of the commercials, due to the fact that the Mickey Mouse short series which premiered on June 28, 2013, replacing the older cartoon shorts and airing regularly as part of the commercials.

In 2014, Disney Channel premiered two new series – I Didn't Do It the Boy Meets World spin-offs Girl Meets World – and three new DCOMs – Cloud 9, Zapped and How to Build a Better Boy. Zapped was the highest rated movie of the year. Four new DCOMs premiered in 2015: Bad Hair Day, Teen Beach 2, Descendants, and Invisible Sister. Especially among them, Descendants was viewed by 6.6 million people on its premiere night[43] on July 31, 2015 and 10.5 million viewers in Early DVR Playback.[44] Shortly after the premier air date, ratings showed the film was the fifth most watched original movie in cable history.[45] On March 21, 2014, A.N.T. Farm aired its last episode after three seasons. In 2015, Disney Channel premiered three new series: K.C. Undercover, Best Friends Whenever, and the Jessie spin-off Bunk'd. 2015 also marks the year that several series aired its last episodes. On June 12, 2015, Phineas and Ferb aired its last episode after 4 seasons. On September 25, 2015, Dog with a Blog aired its last episode after three seasons. Less than a month after, I Didn't Do It and Jessie also aired their last episodes after two and four seasons respectively on October 16, 2015.

In December 2015, Disney Channel acquired Mako Mermaids[46] for a January 2016 premiere. On January 10, 2016, Austin and Ally aired its last two episodes after four seasons. On February 8, 2016, several newsletters reported that Disney Channel acquired a teen music drama called Backstage[47] that made its premiere on March 25, 2016.

On February 14, 2016, during the channel's premiere of the 2013 animated film Frozen, Disney Channel aired a preview of Stuck in the Middle, the first Disney Channel series which all of the main characters are Hispanic. Additional episodes began airing on March 11, 2016. Stuck in the Middle is also the first single-camera Disney Channel series since Jonas L.A..

On June 24, 2016, Disney Channel premiered its 100th DCOM, Adventures in Babysitting, followed by the premiere of new series, Bizaardvark. Prior to the premiere, Disney Channel aired the "100th DCOM Celebration" which began Friday, May 27, 2016 with a four-day marathon of the 51 most popular DCOMs followed by encore presentations of these and every other DCOM ever made through June 2016. The movies would be seen on Disney Channel, the Disney Channel app and VOD through summer 2016.

On July 22, 2016, Disney premiered an animated series Elena of Avalor, a spin-off of the Disney Junior series Sofia the First and the first long-form original cartoon on the network since Wander Over Yonder in 2013. In August, Variety announced that a new single-camera series titled Andi Mack would start production in the fall for a 2017 premiere; the show would also be the first on the network to be geared at Asian Americans.[48] Around the same time, Deadline reported that Disney Channel had acquired the worldwide TV rights to The ZhuZhus[49] from Nelvana; the show would premiere in the US on September 12, 2016.

The Lodge premiered on Disney Channel UK and Ireland in September 2016 and became the channel's highest rated series premiere in the last four years.[50]

2017 would see several series finales and premieres for both Disney Channel's original and acquired programs. Girl Meets World, Best Friends Whenever, and Liv and Maddie all aired their final episodes in January, February, and March respectively. Meanwhile, Tangled: The Series (later retitled Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure), a spin-off of the 2010 film Tangled, first premiered with a precursor TV film on March 10, 2017 before regular episodes began airing on March 24. The premiere of Tangled also coincided with the debut of Disney Channel's graphic redesign. June 25 would see the premiere of Hotel Transylvania: The Series, an animated series based on characters from the 2012 movie of the same name, while the That's So Raven spin-off Raven's Home would debut immediately after the premiere of Descendants 2, on July 21.

2018 officially marked Disney Channel's return to animated programming; in February, the network ordered production on Amphibia and The Owl House while also reporting their intent to premiere first-run episodes from the fourth season of Star vs. the Forces of Evil. Additional press releases in the following months saw Disney XD originals DuckTales, Big Hero 6: The Series, Milo Murphy's Law, and the forthcoming Big City Greens move over to Disney Channel for their premieres. In April, the network unveiled their summer lineup – "Disney Channel GO!" – which, among other series, included a revival of Bug Juice entitled Bug Juice: My Adventures at Camp.

New pickups, acquisitions, and renewals would continue throughout the end of 2018 into 2019, including Star Wars Resistance, Coop & Cami Ask the World, a fourth season of Bunk'd (which would not include regular cast members Peyton List, Karan Brar and Skai Jackson), Sydney to the Max, the miniseries Fast Layne, Just Roll with It, as well as the animated series Go Away, Unicorn! (co-produced with Canadian children's network YTV), Sadie Sparks, Ghostforce, and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir (which had aired on Disney Channel's international outlets since its inception).

From January 6, 2020, Disney Channel went completely commercial-free on weeknights and weekend mornings. This move saw the removal of most pre-show wand IDs, while promos for new episodes and movies avoided showing a given time for the premiere.

Throughout 2020, Disney Channel lost 33% of cable viewers because of the success of Disney+, resulting in various channels shutting down worldwide outside the US.

January 15, 2021 marked the first time a Disney Channel Original Series reached a fifth season with the season premiere of Bunk'd which featured special guest Peyton List as Emma Ross. It also marked the premiere of Disney Channel's first horror series Secrets of Sulphur Springs.