On two nights in March, a raucous crowd of 20- and 30-somethings poured into Disneyland. They came 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 pretend wands to trace an iconic logo of mouse ears in the air.
Even Mickey and Minnie joined in, dressing as East High Wildcats, the signature team from “High School Musical.”
But despite the bubbly energy on Main Street, it was clear: Disney Channel Nite was a eulogy for a bygone era.
Of course, Disney Channel isn’t actually 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, it now barely whispers.
Over the last decade, Disney Channel’s viewership has plummeted from an audience of 2 million in 2014 to a mere 132,000 in 2023, only slightly more than the crowd at a single Taylor Swift concert. The shared experience of more than 17 million viewers settling in to watch one of its premieres, as they did for “High School Musical 2” in 2007, is a pipe dream today.
In fact, the last movie branded as a Disney Channel Original Movie aired in 2022. The cable network now only airs occasional “Disney Original Movies,” nearly identical branding to films made for Disney+, where these titles also drop. Regardless of the platform, most of those recent entries have had little fanfare.
On the series side, Disney Channel’s most buzzed about recent sitcoms have been “Raven’s Home” and the upcoming “Wizards Beyond Waverly Place.” Both are spinoffs of shows from the 2000s and feature some of their predecessors’ original actors, banking on nostalgia for franchises and stars the company minted decades prior.
Last year, Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger asserted that the company’s linear TV networks “may not be core to Disney.” In July, Disney’s television division laid off 140 employees.
The slow demise of Disney Channel isn’t entirely its parent company’s fault. Traditional cable TV is dying. Kids can watch short-form videos on their phones whenever they want, and TikTok and other social platforms launch young celebrities more than sitcoms do.
When the Disney Channel was launched in 1983, cable TV was booming. The network initially existed as a premium offering, exclusive to a small group of subscribers. But as it transitioned to basic cable in the late 1990s it became a coast-to-coast phenomenon.
In the 2000s, by eschewing classic intellectual property that viewers would instantly identify as part of the kid-friendly Disney brand, Disney Channel pulled off a remarkable string of wholly original live-action shows and movies. With hit after hit aimed at the underserved tween demographic, its perky content imprinted on a generation of viewers and their families.
At its peak popularity in 2007, Disney Channel was the top cable network in prime time. Its audience gobbled up not just on-air content, but the tangential albums, video games, concert tickets and apparel, helping bring in billions of dollars in merchandise revenue.
By using its various divisions, Disney made household names out of a stable of actors including Hilary Duff, Zac Efron, Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato. Many of them put out music on Disney’s record labels that climbed Billboard’s charts while they acted on their breakout series.
So great was Cyrus’ influence during her time on “Hannah Montana” — a sitcom about an ordinary girl who moonlights as a wig-wearing popstar — that, at 16, her concert tour caused Ticketmaster to try its first foray into exclusively paperless tickets, shifting the entire music scene.
“We are now entering the Hannah Montana Generation of pop stars,” Rolling Stone reporter Brittany Spanos recently proclaimed, citing the way that Gen Z singers such as Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan have all expressed their early love for the sitcom — and how they incorporate playful flourishes similar to those of the title character into their music and on-stage personas.
Stars like Rodrigo, Carpenter and the actor Jenna Ortega also all had prominent early roles on Disney Channel sitcoms, just as Cyrus did, but none of them ascended to mainstream fame until their time at the network was well in the rearview.
For the performers, such delayed success is arguably a good thing. In recent years, there has been a growing reckoning about the immense pressure and potentially traumatic effects of fame on young people — and the ethics and safety issues of minors working professionally in the entertainment industry at all.
For Disney, the end of Disney Channel’s popularity and cultural influence is a huge loss. And for the current generation of viewers who’ve outgrown Elsa and are too young for “Euphoria,” it’s an entertainment void that remains to be filled.
The Mouse House is still attempting to recreate its lucrative tween strategy of yore. At this year’s D23 showcase, they announced an arena concert tour featuring some of the stars of its “Descendants” and “Zombies” movie franchises.
As evidenced by the Disneyland events and the addition of a continuous Throwback “playlist” on Disney+, however, the company seems to realize their best bet for keeping the Disney Channel magic alive isn’t by creating new hits, but by capitalizing on the nostalgia of former viewers who are now adults.
But what happens when today’s Gen Alpha kids grow up? What live-action Disney shows and movies will they have to be collectively nostalgic about?
“In 2005, Disney was on a mission to rebuild and reimagine the company. That’s why they hired Bob Iger and me,” Cyrus said in a speech last month, as she became the youngest person to ever receive the company’s Disney Legends honor.
The hunt is currently underway to find Iger’s replacement before his contract runs out (again) in 2026. A challenge, for sure — but a doable one.
And it’s certainly easier than finding another Miley Cyrus without a Disney Channel.
Ashley Spencer is a journalist and the author of “Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel’s Tween Empire.”
