Disney Channel (Japan)
Disney Channel is a Japanese children's pay television channel and the Japanese equivalent of the American counterpart pay television channel owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company Japan. Part of Disney Branded Television, a subsidiary of Disney Company|Disney International Operations], it was launched on 18 November 2003 exclusively on SKY PerfecTV!.
History
On 24 April 2003, The Walt Disney Company announced that Disney Channel would launch in Japan, following the 20th anniversary of both Disney Channel and Tokyo Disneyland. It took place on 18 November 2003 on SKY PerfecTV!, coinciding with the 75th anniversary of Mickey Mouse.Disney held a countdown event at Tokyo Big Sight in Ariake on launch day, open to selected guests from the general public, VIP guests and celebrities, including president and director of operations Bob Iger, WDTV International president David Halbert, local administrative director Paul Candland and Japanese boy band Da Pump, who used the event to launch a new song, as well as performing a cover of Circle of Life, entirely in English. At 8pm, after airing one of Disney Channel's Wand IDs, actress Kumiko Mori made an opening announcement. Symbolically, the first program seen on the new channel was the 1928 short Steamboat Willie, which was followed by a message from John Lasseter and the premiere of the film Monsters, Inc.
On 8 July 2004, a VOD service was added to Hikari TV.
In the wake of the closure of the Asian and Korean versions on 1 October 2021, Disney announced that it would not close the Japanese version due to the channel being popular in Japan than in Southeast Asia.