Disney Channels Worldwide

Disney Channels Worldwide (officially ABC Cable Networks Group, Inc.) is a subsidiary of Disney–ABC Television Group, a unit of Disney Media Networks, the division of The Walt Disney Company that operates various children and family television channels around the world: Disney Channel, Disney XD, Disney Junior, Disney Cinemagic, Dlife, and Hungama TV. In addition, the subsidiary is responsible for operating Radio Disney, Disney Television Animation and It's a Laugh Productions.

Disney Channel was originally established in the United States in 1983 as a premium cable channel, and has since converted to a basic service; in addition, Disney Channel's programming has also expanded internationally with the launch of various country-specific and regional versions of the channel, as well as program licensing agreements reached with television networks not bearing the Disney Channel brand.

Previous corporate names were: Walt Disney Entertainment, Inc. (1982-1983), The Disney Channel, Inc. (1983-1997), Disney Channel, Inc. (1997-2001).

On November 10, 1981, Walt Disney Productions and Westinghouse Broadcasting released that they had agreed to start a family-oriented cable television service. In 1982, Disney hired Alan Wagner to develop a cable channel.

By July 15, 1982, Disney incorporated Walt Disney Entertainment, Inc. which was renamed by January 28, 1983 to The Disney Channel, Inc. The channel, The Disney Channel, was launched in April 1983 with 16 hours of programming as a premium channel. The channel became profitable in January 1985,

20 months after launch, The channel moved into the home satellite dish market thus scrambling its signal. The channel started moving to the basic cable level on September 1, 1990 with TCI Montgomery Cablevision. In March 1995, the second Disney Channel began broadcasting in Taiwan while the third is launched in October for the United Kingdom.