La Chaîne Disney is a Canadian French languagespecialty channel owned by Teletoon Canada, Inc., a subsidiary of Corus Entertainment, and launched on September 1, 2015, replacing Télétoon Rétro. It is a localized version of the U.S. subscription network Disney Channel, broadcasting live-action and animated programming aimed at children in French in Canada. The launch of the network came alongside a licensing deal reached between Disney and Corus, in which it acquired Canadian rights to Disney Channel's programming library, and the announcement of a Canadian version of Disney Channel broadcasting in English that launched concurrently. Previous rightsholder DHX Media never operated any Disney Channel-branded services in English or French, and its only French-language Disney-branded property was a French-language Canadian version of the preschool children's brand Disney Junior.
History
French-language dubs of Disney Channel programs were historically aired by Radio-Canada and later Vrak.TV. The latter channel was co-owned with Family Channel. Vrak.TV was separated from Family with the acquisition of Astral Media by Bell Media; in an attempt to relieve concerns surrounding Bell's total market share in English-language television following the merger, Bell elected to divest Family Channel and its sister networks to DHX Media, which included Astral's French-language version of Disney Junior. On April 16, 2015, Corus Entertainment announced that it had acquired long-term, Canadian multi-platform rights to Disney Channel's programming library; the cost and duration of the licensing deal were not disclosed. Alongside the licensing deal, Corus announced that it would officially launch a Canadian version of Disney Channel; the service will consist of linear television channels in English and French, along with TV Everywhere and video-on-demand services for digital platforms. The French-language service, La chaîne Disney, launched concurrently with its English-language counterpart on September 1, 2015. It replaced Télétoon Rétro in its previous channel allotments, and operates under the same CRTC license. In 2018, the channel was rebranded to match its English-language counterpart while keeping its logo.
Programming
La chaîne Disney's programming consists mainly of French-language dubs of existing programs from Disney Channel. Disney XD and Disney Junior programs are also included as part of their respective programming blocks, Disney Junior sur la chaîne Disney and, previously, XD Zone. Both blocks also shown programs from Disney Channel and other broadcasters based on their respective themes. Original series from the three channels are labelled in bold.
