International Disney Networks Thread Part 10

[MagiaDiWinx]

@Moleoman I found a news article with a part about the dubbing on DC Poland:

Disney's research found even Polish children like lektoring. But the broadcaster plans to gradually start dubbing shows on the Polish Disney channel, believing children will prefer a variety of voices once they get used to them. "We are confident we can introduce a greater level of dubbing over time, but we can't just rush in," says Robert Gilby, managing director of the Disney Channel in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia and Emerging Markets, which includes Poland. When Disney's hit teenage movie, "High School Musical," appeared on Poland's main network in December, all parts were read by a man in deadpan.

I think I was right about Disney wanting to see how DC fared in Poland before they started to lipsync dub the shows.

 

[Markus Nelis]

Maybe, but it has also something to do I suppose with them having the possibility to run content from both DJ and Disney Channel plus maybe EMEA didn't work out in terms of content .

True. DC EMEA will remove Big City Greens just when DC Scandinavia relaunches. Their biggest animated right now. Maybe that was one of the only shows both agreed to stick around. However shows like Bunk'd and Sydney to the Max are the shows DC Scandinavia always airs which DC EMEA doesn't even have anymore.

I think it's best to have a Scandinavian feed back. If some shows aren't doing well in Africa and Southern Europe but at the same time get good ratings in Scandinavia, it's logical to relaunch. Even the other way around. Some shows aren't popular in Scandinavia but may be in other areas. Last summer when we got DC EMEA though, everything worked out well.

 

[MagiaDiWinx]

True. DC EMEA will remove Big City Greens just when DC Scandinavia relaunches. Their biggest animated right now. Maybe that was one of the only shows both agreed to stick around. However shows like Bunk'd and Sydney to the Max are the shows DC Scandinavia always airs which DC EMEA doesn't even have anymore.

I think it's best to have a Scandinavian feed back. If some shows aren't doing well in Africa and Southern Europe but at the same time get good ratings in Scandinavia, it's logical to relaunch. Even the other way around. Some shows aren't popular in Scandinavia but may be in other areas. Last summer when we got DC EMEA though, everything worked out well.

I think that little “UK, Scandinavia, emerging markets” thing I brought up may also apply here. Sure, DC UK isn’t around anymore and “emerging markets” refers to the political/economic/whatever situation of the 2000s, but it makes sense to handle each thing differently rather than making them all one, because they’re different markets.

 

[Rrr]

Egmont's Disney comic weekly in Denmark had an advertisement for Disney Channel in last week's issue, not anything special but it surprised me since I haven't seen any DC ads for years:

 

[Francisque]

I think that little “UK, Scandinavia, emerging markets” thing I brought up may also apply here. Sure, DC UK isn’t around anymore and “emerging markets” refers to the political/economic/whatever situation of the 2000s, but it makes sense to handle each thing differently rather than making them all one, because they’re different markets.

I think a lot has changed since then

E.g. Poland used to receive a kind of Scandi feed, but that changed when DC (sub-Saharan) Africa launched, which meant a shake up in the management department, with Poland and MENA rightly switching to that team

...which, would eventually take over the Jetix's in Central and Eastern Europe

Nevertheless, these teams are all based in London (UK and EMEA); but they had differed so much I believe they had little contact one with the other, even based on different London neighbourhoods
@RegularCapital does know more than me and clear things up, and you can check his detailed pages

Scandinavia also was (I believe still is) based in London, but there are people from Stockholm and Copenhagen taken care of it, always have been (being a wealthy market), so it's always been very localized: and it shows, a lot of local initiatives

Which have been flattened with time, with the decline of linear TV and lack of advertising

Nevertheless, obviously these operations are all part of the EMEA-superstructure, so some similarities are quite obvious, even more based on the fact they're based in London

Egmont's Disney comic weekly in Denmark had an advertisement for Disney Channel in last week's issue, not anything special but it surprised me since I haven't seen any DC ads for years:

It's good they're retaining some sanity

I expect preschooler content (Disney Junior) to take over much of the morning on the newly launched Scandi feed, and maybe the early afternoon too; but I much prefer that to unlocalized and relatively bland "EMEA" feeds, plus Disney Junior's barely are taken care of

 

[Markus Nelis]

Egmont's Disney comic weekly in Denmark had an advertisement for Disney Channel in last week's issue, not anything special but it surprised me since I haven't seen any DC ads for years:

Gives the first idea what they will air. Kiff isn't in the DC EMEA schedule so I'm glad to see it back. Phineas & Ferb was expected. However it didn't air during the final months of the previous DC Scandi era so it's nice that got confirmed as well.

The feed will definitely be more alive than it was in early 2023 during the final months of previous DC Scandinavia.

As for Disney Junior, I can see it running at 6a to 1p. I'm excited. I'll be able to post the schedule for relaunch next week.

 

[MagiaDiWinx]

I think a lot has changed since then

Of course, I was saying that despite all the changes (even on a bigger scale than just TV) it’s still different markets and that’s what matters.

 

[Francisque]

I think , on satellite (internally too) they have got rid of the various national DK, SWE, NO) advertising variants of DC Scandinavia well before the switch to EMEA

Hence, if we're going to see some advertising on DC Scandinavia back, expect it to be a mixture of the various countries

I don't think they're going to spend a penny on getting the national sub-feeds of DC Scandi back, but let's see

@Markus Nelis

 

[Markus Nelis]

Hence, if we're going to see some advertising on DC Scandinavia back, expect it to be a mixture of the various countries

I don't think they're going to spend a penny on getting the national sub-feeds of DC Scandi back, but let's see

@Markus Nelis

If ads do return, then that's the biggest reason DC Scandinvavia relaunches. They will get the ad revenue.

I doubt there will be sub-feeds. All three languages are so similar. They could even go textless or have all text from three languages.

 

[MagiaDiWinx]

DC France didn’t start fully using ribbon graphics til September 2007 but in the summer they already used them for ads. But idk why they didn’t drop the strange, massive watermark when Spain and Portugal (I don’t know if they still used the textless, greyer version based on this one right until the ribbon look started) did?

And Spain and presumably Portugal were using the app logo in late 2010, alongside the ribbon graphics (which weren’t properly adapted to widescreen apart from seasonal ones) for some promotional things but only switched to it fully in September 2011…So weird. I believe Spain was like Germany where they mainly ran the channel in 4:3 but for certain things would switch to widescreen, only difference is Germany adjusted the graphics to fit and Spain didn’t.

 

[Francisque]

If ads do return, then that's the biggest reason DC Scandinvavia relaunches. They will get the ad revenue.

I doubt there will be sub-feeds. All three languages are so similar. They could even go textless or have all text from three languages.

I mean getting sub-feeds for advertising, not promos: so e.g. Norway will get Danish ads and viceversa

Of course promotions will be the same for all the territory,as they always have been




@MagiaDiWinx

It made their channel look so freaking ugly and even primitive with that DOG.

I wonder who even thought it was going to look nice to acceptable...people know the channel they're watching without a monster sized Disney Channel inscription

I suppose there's a source of "stubbornness"; they kept it until the very end of the ribbon graphics, while getting later a barely visible DOG later lol.

Playhouse Disney France and Toon Disney France also had the explosive kind of DOG on a grey translucent background (unlike TD UK and PD UK and all the others, which all had solid red and yellow) , but they had changed it to the UK one in 2004-5, while DC France got stuck with that until the very end.

You can check other videos from them on YT

I remember very well they used the ribbon promos and other stuff before September 2007.

DC France was also the only one in EMEA in 2005-6 to use some of the laterUS Next menus, the cheaper ones with recycled music

At least DC Italy used the much better Bounce 2.0 package as a replacement in 2005-6, unlike even DC UK with their "soda bubbles" cheaper package in Autumn/Fall ,2006

They've always done their best (actually worst) to look different just foe the sake of it.


DC Germany is also quite odd in a conservative manner. E.g. running the same cancelled shows, more animation over anything else, and conservative graphic packages, not much a will to change... I guess that's where Turner Germany took the inspiration for their lack of initiative for the CEE channels from lol

 

[MagiaDiWinx]

I wonder who even thought it was going to look nice to acceptable...people know the channel they're watching without a monster sized Disney Channel inscription

I suppose there's a source of "stubbornness"; they kept it until the very end of the ribbon graphics, while getting later a barely visible DOG later lol.

They also didn’t change it for holidays. It was changed for some Hannah Montana events (I believe that was Disney Channel’s most popular show on a worldwide scale hence why they did so many gimmicks for it) but it didn’t look very good either.
Another fail: You can see a lack of coordination between the channel and the studios they commissioned to dub their shows, as the studio should’ve been aware to not put subtitles where the ECP was gonna cover it. (Also, for some reason, the French version of this episode splits at a different part than the original? I guess DC France made their own cut of the episode by splitting the “one double-length episode” version in half instead of the proper two-parter version and that’s why it’s different?)

Playhouse Disney France and Toon Disney France also had the explosive kind of DOG on a grey translucent background (unlike TD UK and PD UK and all the others, which all had solid red and yellow) , but they had changed it to the UK one in 2004-5, while DC France got stuck with that until the very end.

You can check other videos from them on YT

I don’t know about Toon Disney but PHD in Spain also used the weird French one around the same time:
then another strange one re the text scaling, which in 2007 they made the full DC logo size then zoomed it in again…

Italy‘s main DC watermark had the solid wordmark but their +1 didn’t. I don’t have a pic of this but rips aren’t hard to find. I just can’t be bothered.

I remember very well they used the ribbon promos and other stuff before September 2007.

DC France was also the only one in EMEA in 2005-6 to use some of the laterUS Next menus, the cheaper ones with recycled music

At least DC Italy used the much better Bounce 2.0 package as a replacement in 2005-6, unlike even DC UK with their "soda bubbles" cheaper package in Autumn/Fall ,2006

They've always done their best (actually worst) to look different just foe the sake of it.


DC Germany is also quite odd in a conservative manner. E.g. running the same cancelled shows, more animation over anything else, and conservative graphic packages, not much a will to change... I guess that's where Turner Germany took the inspiration for their lack of initiative for the CEE channels from lol

Later (mainly after 2009, I think as early as 2007 in France’s case), all of these DCs made their own graphics which usually looked inconsistent and cheap.

The early app logo was also a whole mess with so many packages like the UK graphics, US graphics, EMEA-Scandinavia-Iberia graphics (this area also constantly mashed together different elements and took forever to fully rebrand. UK-ran ones used both them and the UK ones), Italy graphics (based on 2007-11 look but without the ribbon element), LA graphics (ribbon just with the new logo), France which was its own thing, also inspired by 2007-11 custom French graphics, and didn’t look very good. Scandinavia and EMEA revealed the app logo early with seasonal graphics while the UK MOSTLY held back (still some fails like December 2010) but point is this was a whole mess and it always was that way. EMEA still used 2013 summer graphics in winter, for example. Now I’m confusing myself.

The UK with their 3 shows menu mini-era often randomly used bounce 1.0 elements, too.

 

[Francisque]

@MagiaDiWinx it was a messy era.

Nevertheless,UK was quite consistent with the looks, and very often (normally) DC IT too!
Not too many slips at all

The first UK smartphone UK (and second Italian ones) graphics were actually good, but they only lasted one year

EMEA and Scandinavia: total mess though
France too!

@MagiaDiWinx you can also tell back then DC French channels had HUGE issues with the messed up SECAM induced deep audio including lower picture quality still due to SECAM artifacts.

Now HD makes French channels look and sound much better!
SECAM is still poor compared to PAL, but better than NTSC

 

[Markus Nelis]

I mean getting sub-feeds for advertising, not promos: so e.g. Norway will get Danish ads and viceversa

I was talking about ads too. The ads could go either: a) textless, b) show text for all three languages at the same time or c) do switchover by adding one lanuage at a time every 3 seconds, you can see letters changing. Of course there's no need to add multiple sub-feeds. They will figure it out.

 

[Francisque]

I was talking about ads too. The ads could go either: a) textless, b) show text for all three languages at the same time or c) do switchover by adding one lanuage at a time every 3 seconds, you can see letters changing. Of course there's no need to add multiple sub-feeds. They will figure it out.

Are there many pan-Scandinavian products for children (especially toys) though?
I don't know, I know UK and Ireland often do (not always though, and obviously the bias is on the UK side) and that's the reason CN UK doesn't have a Ireland sub-feed , e.g. a few products are in both pounds and euros
But they have a shared language, plus, Ireland is used to some British ads on less important channels while in Scandinavia no country has a bigger dominance on the other .

I thought many products differed from country to country

But I guess that while keeping advertising to a minimum, they might be able to show pan-Scandinavian products only

 

[Markus Nelis]

Are there many pan-Scandinavian products for children (especially toys) though?

Obviously the most popular ones like Barbie and Hot Wheels can be found everywhere. Disney Channel Nordic doesn't need to air long breaks. 2 minutes each break should be enough for a 25 minute based schedule which I think they're going to air. Usually in September there are more advertisers so I wouldn't be surprised if they extend the schedule to 30 minutes.

 

[Francisque]

Obviously the most popular ones like Barbie and Hot Wheels can be found everywhere. Disney Channel Nordic doesn't need to air long breaks. 2 minutes each break should be enough for a 25 minute based schedule which I think they're going to air. Usually in September there are more advertisers so I wouldn't be surprised if they extend the schedule to 30 minutes.

Yeah, obviously a 30 min based schedule is to exclude in any possible way, there isn't either commercial appetite, a huge audience and it'd even lead to viewer being disappointed

Even in the months leading to Christmas , these times are over, if even they can show 2-3 mins of advertising they're lucky, since other kids channels have dropped it completely.
The children's audience has shifted to streaming even more than elsewhere, and that results in less potential viewership among the 20/25 milion Scandinavian/Nordic viewers.

In the bigger western countries kids channels still show a consistent number of ads on children's channels, especially the UK, but UK-France-Germany-Italy-Spain-Poland are the biggest economies in terms of demography, there just is more commercial request for them, there are more potential eyeballs watching

 

[Markus Nelis]

Even if kids have moved to streaming, it wouldn't hurt them to at least show two minutes of ads each break. They could have 5 advertising sponsorships which isn't much. It's one of the most popular networks. It may not be popular in many cable providers as one dropped the channel but overall it's doing well. We are ahead so we'll see if they really show ads or not.

 

[MagiaDiWinx]

@MagiaDiWinx you can also tell back then DC French channels had HUGE issues with the messed up SECAM induced deep audio including lower picture quality still due to SECAM artifacts.

Now HD makes French channels look and sound much better!
SECAM is still poor compared to PAL, but better than NTSC

Could I have an example?

 

[RegularCapital]

I think a lot has changed since then

E.g. Poland used to receive a kind of Scandi feed, but that changed when DC (sub-Saharan) Africa launched, which meant a shake up in the management department, with Poland and MENA rightly switching to that team

...which, would eventually take over the Jetix's in Central and Eastern Europe

Nevertheless, these teams are all based in London (UK and EMEA); but they had differed so much I believe they had little contact one with the other, even based on different London neighbourhoods
@RegularCapital does know more than me and clear things up, and you can check his detailed pages

As far as I know, Disney only has one main office in London, on Queen Caroline Street, and the leased Pinewood Studios. The EMEA networks are led by two main people in London, the main boss, Diego Londono (who also oversees content), and the general manager, Deborah Armstrong, who oversees the day-to-day operations of the EMEA networks, and the whole Disney UK and Ireland business.

The other networks execs (who are also country managers) are based in their respective regions, in Madrid, Amsterdam, Paris, Munich, Copenhagen, and Milan, except CEE which is based in London. Obviously, with the closure of the Chiswick facility, their operations have been scaled back, decentralised to their respective regions.