Disney Jr.

Disney Jr. is an American pay television network owned by the Disney Branded Television, a sub-division of the Disney Entertainment business segment of the Walt Disney Company. Aimed mainly at children two to seven years of age, its programming consists of original first-run television series, films, and select other third-party programming.

As of November 2023^[update], Disney Jr. is available to approximately 45,000,000 pay television households in the United States, down from its 2015 peak of 74,000,000 households. In recent years, Disney Jr.'s carriage has declined with the growth of streaming alternatives, including its parent company's Disney+, and has generally been depreciated by Disney in current retransmission consent negotiations with cable and streaming providers. Notably, the channel was removed in negotiations with Verizon Fios in 2025, and was unavailable on Charter Spectrum from 2023 to 2025.

The Walt Disney Company first attempted to launch a 24-hour subscription channel for preschoolers in the United States, when the company announced plans to launch Playhouse Disney as a television channel, named after Disney Channel's daytime programming block of the same name, which launched on the channel on February 1, 1999 (airing during the morning hours seven days a week, with the weekday blocks lasting until the early afternoon). Plans for the United States network were ultimately canceled. However, channels using the Playhouse Disney moniker were launched in other countries internationally.

The development of Disney Junior began on May 26, 2010, when Disney–ABC Television Group announced the launch of the channel as a pay television service, which would compete with other subscription channels targeted primarily at preschool-aged children in addition to the Playhouse Disney branded blocks and channels being rebranded under Disney Junior.

The flagship channel in the United States intended to replace Soapnet, a Disney-owned channel featuring daytime soap operas seen on the major broadcast networks (including sister network ABC) and reruns of primetime drama series, due to the continued decline in popularity and quantity of soap operas on broadcast television, along with the growth of video on demand services (including the online streaming availability for soap operas) and digital video recorders that negated the need for a linear channel devoted to the genre.

Disney Junior first launched as a programming block on Disney Channel on February 14, 2011. The Disney Junior channel was originally scheduled to launch in January 2012, but on July 28, 2011, the Disney-ABC Television Group postponed the channel's launch date to an unspecified date in early 2012, then on January 9, 2012, the Disney-ABC Television Group announced that Soapnet's closing date for most cable providers was scheduled for March 22, 2012.

Disney Junior's 24-hour subscription channel counterpart officially launched the following day on March 23, at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time.^{[citation needed]} Programming featured on the channel's initial lineup included Jake and the Never Land Pirates, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and Doc McStuffins (which premiered around this time); the channel also aired new episodes of the short-form series A Poem Is. as well as the weekend movie block, the Magical World of Disney Junior.

Although Disney Junior had replaced the channel space held by Soapnet on most providers, an automated feed of that channel continued to broadcast for providers that had not yet reached agreements to carry Disney Junior, or to prevent losing subscribers due to the network's closure. These included some providers such as Cox Communications, Optimum, DirecTV, Verizon FiOS, and Time Warner Cable, which continued to carry Soapnet while having added the Disney Junior channel onto their channel lineups on a different channel space. Soapnet's operations continued sixteen months later than had been originally planned, until the network's shutdown on December 31, 2013, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.