On two nights in March, a rowdy crowd of twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings invaded Disneyland. They arrived dressed as characters from “Hannah Montana,“ “Brink!”, “The Cheetah Girls” and “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.” They sang “Camp Rock” songs during karaoke and used toy wands to trace An iconic mouse ears logo in the air.
Even Mickey and Minnie joined in, dressed as the East High Wildcats, the signature team from “High School Musical.”
But despite the bubbling energy on Main Street, it was clear: Night on Disney Channel It was a tribute to a bygone era.
Of course, Disney Channel isn't dead. It still exists as a cable network. But where it once roared with billion-dollar hits that seemingly infiltrated every living room in America, now it's barely a whisper.
Over the past decade, Disney Channel's audience has… collapsed from an audience of 2 million in 2014 to just 132,000 in 2023, just slightly more than the crowd at a single Taylor Swift concert. The shared experience of More than 17 million viewers Sitting down to watch one of their premieres, as they did with “High School Musical 2” in 2007, is today a pipe dream.
In fact, the last movie labeled a Disney Channel Original Movie aired in 2022. The cable network now only occasionally airs “Disney Original Movies,” a branding nearly identical to the movies made for Disney+, where these titles are also released. Regardless of the platform, most of those recent entries have been met with little fanfare.
As for series, the most talked about Disney Channel comedies of late have been “The House of the Crow and the next one “Wizards Beyond Waverly Place.“ Both are spin-offs of shows from the 2000s and feature some of the original cast members from their predecessors, tapping into nostalgia for the franchises and stars the company created decades earlier.
Last year, Disney CEO Bob Iger said that the company's linear television networks “It may not be critical to Disney..” In July, Disney's television division dismissed 140 employees.
The slow demise of Disney Channel isn’t entirely the fault of its parent company. Traditional cable TV is dying. Kids can watch short videos on their phones whenever they want, and TikTok and other social platforms promote young celebrities more than sitcoms.
When Disney Channel launched in 1983, cable television was booming. The network initially existed as a premium offering, exclusive to a small group of subscribers. But when it transitioned to basic cable in the late 1990s, it became a coast-to-coast phenomenon.
In the 2000s, by eschewing the classic intellectual property that viewers would instantly identify as part of the Disney brand for kids, Disney Channel achieved a remarkable run of all-original live-action shows and movies. With hit after hit aimed at the underserved pre-teen demographic, its lighthearted content left its mark on a generation of viewers and their families.
At its height of popularity in 2007, Disney Channel was The best cable network in prime time. Its audience devoured not only the on-air content but also albums, video games, concert tickets and clothing, helping to generate billions of dollars in merchandise revenue.
By leveraging its various divisions, Disney has made household names out of a number of actors including Hilary Duff, Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato. Many of them released music on Disney's record labels that climbed the Billboard charts while starring in its hit series.
So great was Cyrus’s influence during her stint on “Hannah Montana” — a comedy about an ordinary girl who works as a wig-wearing pop star — that, at age 16, her concert tour prompted Ticketmaster to attempt its first foray into exclusively paperless tickets, changing the entire music scene.
“We’re entering the Hannah Montana generation of pop stars,” Rolling Stone reporter Brittany Spanos recently said. proclaimedciting the way Gen Z singers like Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan have expressed their early love of comedy, and how they incorporate humorous touches similar to the main character's into their music and on-stage personas.
Stars like Rodrigo, Carpenter and actress Jenna Ortega also had prominent roles on Disney Channel sitcoms, as did Cyrus, but none of them rose to fame until their time on the network was well behind them.
For artists, this late success is undoubtedly a good thing. In recent years, there has been growing awareness of the immense pressure and potentially traumatic effects of fame on young people, and the ethics and security issues of minors who work professionally in the entertainment industry.
For Disney, the end of Disney Channel’s popularity and cultural influence is a huge loss. And for the current generation of viewers who no longer want to watch Elsa and are too young for “Euphoria,” it’s an entertainment void that has yet to be filled.
The House of Mouse continues to try to recreate its lucrative teen strategy of yesteryear. At this year's D23 show, they announced a arena concert tour with some of the stars of its “Descendants” and “Zombies” film franchises.
As evidenced by the events at Disneyland and the addition of A continuous retroactive “playlist” But at Disney+, the company seems to realize that its best bet for keeping the magic of Disney Channel alive isn’t by creating new hits, but by capitalizing on the nostalgia of former viewers who are now adults.
But what will happen when today's Gen Alpha kids grow up? Which live-action Disney shows and movies will make them feel collective nostalgia?
“In 2005, Disney was on a mission to rebuild and reimagine the company. That’s why they hired Bob Iger and me,” Cyrus said. saying in a speech last month, when he became the youngest person to receive the company's Disney Legends honor.
The search for Iger is currently underway. replacement before his contract expires (again) in 2026. A challenge, no doubt —But it is feasible.
And it's certainly easier than finding another Miley Cyrus without Disney Channel.
Ashley Spencer is a journalist and author of “Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire.”
