Jetix

In January 2004, Fox Kids Europe, Fox Kids Latin America and ABC Cable Networks Group agreed to rename its then current operations under a single brand, called Jetix,[9][10] which helped strengthen its then operations into a single force. The Jetix name was applied to its programming blocks which aired on ABC Family and Toon Disney, its television channels in Europe and Latin America, along with its programme library and merchandising.[9] After the end of Fox Kids on Fox (and in some cases UPN affiliates), Fox contracted out children's programming to 4Kids Entertainment, which led to the creation of the Fox Box block (later 4Kids TV), however it was syndicated to other broadcast stations if the local FOX affiliates did not show any interest in airing the block. [11]

The Jetix name was chosen after the company conducted international research specifically with a number of children focus groups. Many of the children picked the name as it implied action and adventure, and the company was able to use the name internationally due to its ambiguity. Bruce Steinberg, chairman and chief executive officer of Fox Kids Europe, explain that Jetix would help strengthen Fox Kids Europe's partnership with Disney while building new alliances to continue to successfully leverage its programming library and distribution.[12][13]

On Valentine's Day 2004, Toon Disney and ABC Family launched their Jetix blocks with Jetix Cards Live, the world's first concurrently online and telecast trading card game.[1] ABC Family aired Jetix on weekdays from 7am to 9am and weekends 7am to 12 noon ET/PT. The block also aired on Toon Disney Monday through Thursday from 7pm to 9pm ET/PT and weekends from 7pm to 9pm ET/PT.[14]

Outside of the United States, Jetix was firstly launched as a programming block on the European Fox Kids channels in April 2004,[2] airing in mornings and afternoons.[15]

The transition to the Jetix brand started in August 2004, with replacing the French version of Fox Kids,[3] and at the same month, it was also launched in Latin America.[16] In October 2004, it was launched in Scandinavia, in January 2005 in most European countries, in February in Netherlands and in March in Italy and Israel. The very last Fox Kids channel in the world to be replaced by Jetix was the German version, which was closed in June 2005, ending the transition from Fox Kids to Jetix.[17]

In addition, the Fox Kids Play channels available in CEE and MENA were also rebranded as Jetix Play, on 1st of January, 2005.[18]

The new Jetix brand did bring together the children's programming department at ABC's cable networks, Fox Kids in Europe and Latin America in a joint programming alliance. The first Jetix Europe co-productions were W.I.T.C.H. and Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go!, with Get Ed and Yin Yang Yo! following in 2005 and 2006 respectively.

Jetix Europe also had its own creative department which oversaw all creative design, both internally and externally. Jetix Europe's first creative director was Tim Robinson, he was appointed in 2003,[19] and oversaw the graphical replacement of Fox Kids with Jetix. In December 2005, Tim Robinson left Jetix and Anil Mistry was appointed as the new Jetix creative director, he previously worked at design agency Liquid TV as a senior creative director, and also at Paramount Comedy and Nickelodeon as a creative and also at ITV franchisee for Wales and West England - HTV (Harlech Television) as the title sequence designer for Spaced and Black Books.[20]

Throughout Jetix's existence, many creative agencies and freelancers contributed to the general look of the channel. In 2006, London-based Jump Design was contracted to make new set of Jetix idents, with the channel's mascot "J" taking new forms, including a Flying Saucer, Monster Truck and a Jet Plane, Maya was used to produce the 3D animation, these idents were created and designed by Andy Day.[21] Jump Design also produced the Jetix Kids Awards title sequence, also designed by Andy Day and made in Maya.[22]

Yeti Motion Graphics made a promo for Jetix to promote the premiere of Pokémon: Diamond and Pearl: Battle Dimension on Jetix UK. Sprout Design (now known as Earth, a division of Evolutions) created a graphics package featuring a Jetix holiday island where characters are entertained with rollercoasters, a volcano hot tub, volleyball on the beach, a hotel and pool and undiscovered jungle areas.[23]

Jetix Spain approached The Thinklab to produce a new space for the channel entitled "Hub" focusing on creativity, heroes, computer games, and other media, these idents were designed by Rafael Calleja and directed by Julio Soto. Freelancer Adam Gill made some promos for Jetix Italy, including one for Power Rangers: Ninja Storm London-based design studio Light Creative made some Christmas branding for the channel in form of a pinball machine.[24]

Some idents were also produced for Jetix Netherlands in 2007-2008, animated by Ralf Hekkenberg (Guckindiewelt), produced by Martijn Wolff/Palookaville and backgrounds by Studio Shosho, these idents look very different compared to the Jetix's consistant branding, in this case "J" is textured and missing his thick red outline, and the Jetix typeface is not used (a modified version of the Luggage typeface called "Jetix Luggage" was used extensively on branding), neither is Effectra Ultra. Both the Jetix version of Luggage and the original version of Luggage developed by T-26 were used on Jetix website.[25][26][27]

Jetix Europe's Central Eastern European (CEE) channel team (headed by Maciej Bral, Managing Director for Jetix in Central Eastern Europe and the Middle East) produced a collection of idents for its Jetix Max programming strand with the help of Light Creative with Jetix CEE's creative director Simon Dean and Kate Morton, Director of Programming & On-Air, idents feature amazingly extreme superhero-like stunts such as riding a bike up a skateboard ramp and then fly off into the sky, slam dunking on Basketball hoop and then fly into the sky and a breakdancing headspin that goes ridiculously fast.[28] The Jetix Max idents won gold in the Best On-Air Branding category at the 2018 UK Promax Awards.[29] [30][31]Light Creative also created an ident for Jetix's successor - Disney XD.

Light Creative also made a competition promo for Jetix Play, an additional channel in Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Poland, that aired programming from the DIC Entertainment, Saban Entertainment, ABC Family Worldwide and Fox Kids/Jetix archives. [32][33]

At the start of Jetix Europe's life, Maxime Depondt worked as a freelancer and helped develop the channel's broadcast design including promos and menus. Towards the end of Jetix, Petros Papadopoulos worked as a Graphic and Multimedia Designer. Jay Donn worked as a Junior Graphic Designer for Disney Channel and Jetix between 2008-2009. [34][35][36]

In Autumn 2006, Toon Disney in the United States became the exclusive home for Jetix, effectively ending the block on ABC Family.[37] However, the Jetix programming block continued to take significant chunk of Toon Disney's airtime, until the introduction of Disney XD in the United States on 13th February 2009.[38] In 1999, Disney forced pay-TV providers in the United States to move Disney Channel from their premium packages to their basic packages or Disney will refuse to renew their carriage deals, Comcast and Time Warner Cable were the last major providers to have Disney Channel as premium channel.[39]

Disney XD was to be slightly different to Jetix, it still mostly focused on the boy demographic, but will have more live-action productions under the Disney banner and will also be a home for Disney's recent animated productions (for both boys and girls), effectively superseding Toon Disney in the United States. In the U.S., the new brand was to be “aimed at boys ages 6-14 and features content focusing on the themes of adventure, accomplishment, gaming, music and sports.”

In the UK, Disney Channel and Playhouse Disney stopped being a premium channel on 16th March 2006, joining alongside Jetix in the basic cable and satellite packages. [40] The premium aspect of Disney Channel (basically Disney's movies, which are considered to the jewel in Disney's crown in terms of content) was merged with Toon Disney to create Disney Cinemagic, a premium channel available as a standalone channel and as a bonus channel in Sky's movie packages. Disney Channel changed focus on original sitcoms, most particularly focusing on girls and Playhouse Disney continued their usual pre-school formula. Jetix remained to be the only children's channel with any connection to Disney to have advertising (with exception to GMTV's children's programming on weekend mornings on ITV and the pre-school block on shortlived channel - ABC1). It wasn't until 1st July 2013, both Disney Channel and Disney Junior (formally Playhouse Disney) started to carry advertising.[41]ESPN Classic, a sports archive channel also launched three days before on 13th March. Disney Cinemagic was subsequently rolled out across Europe replacing existing versions of Toon Disney in France and Spain, followed by launches in Germany, Portugal and Italy, Disney Channel ceased being premium in these countries as well.

A few months before the U.S. launch of Disney XD on 8th December 2008, Disney announced that it will be increasing its shareholding in Jetix Europe to 96% with the intention to buy the remaining shares in the company, effectively ending Jetix Europe's autonomy.[42] Disney wanted full control of the company and bring the European Jetix channels completely under the Disney umbrella, especially as differentiation is no longer need to separate Jetix from Disney Channel as Disney Channel is no longer a premium channel, it made sense for Jetix to be rebranded as Disney XD and to have a singular unified strategy for its channels. After the completion of Jetix Europe's share buy-back offer, Jetix Europe was delisted from the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange on 27th February 2009.[43][44] In the gradual phase out of the Jetix brand, Jetix Europe's CEO Paul Taylor resigned, with John Hardie, the Executive Vice President of Disney Channels EMEA as CEO on 11th February 2009. John Hardie left Disney for ITN in June 2009 and was replaced with Giorgio Stock (who later became in charge of Turner Broadcasting System Europe).[45]

In June 2008, Disney France announced that Disney Channel and Jetix will merge operations, also at the time Jetix was being affected by falling carriage rates and came close to leaving the CanalSat pay-TV platform in France after protracted negotiations. Jetix France was the first European version of Jetix to make the conversion to Disney XD on 1st April 2009.[46][47]

In countries where Disney Channel didn't already exist, Jetix became Disney Channel (most notably the Central Eastern Europe and the Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia feeds). The very last main Jetix feed in the world, Jetix Russia made the conversion to Disney Channel on 10th August 2010. Also, the Jetix Play feed became Playhouse Disney, however, not at the same time of the Disney XD rebrands, in the countries where Jetix Play broadcast it became a localised version of Playhouse Disney, the rollout happened between 2010 and 2011 one region at a time.[48][18]

In Italy, there was a management buyout (led by the managing director of Jetix Italy, Francesco Nespega) of Jetix Italy. The Jetix Italy subsidiary was renamed as Switchover Media and was now responsible for two channels that used to be operated by Jetix Italy, pay-TV channel GXT and free-to-air channel K2. Meanwhile the main Jetix Italy channel remained at Disney and was rebranded as Disney XD in September 2009.[49]

Jetix Play

Fox Kids Play's logo, the predecessor of Jetix Play.
Jetix Play's logo, used from 2007 until its closure.
Type	children's television network
Country	United Kingdom[95][96]
Broadcast area	CEE and MENA
Network	Jetix
Headquarters	338 Euston Road, London, United Kingdom[97][98]
Programming
Language(s)	English, Polish, Romanian[99] (only for a short while), Turkish, Russian
Picture format	576i (SDTV)
Ownership
Owner	Jetix Europe
Parent	The Walt Disney Company
Sister channels	Jetix
History
Founded	January 2003(as Fox Kids Play) 1 January 2005(as Jetix Play)
Launched	January 2003 (Poland) October 2003(Central and Eastern Europe and Turkey, later in MENA)
Closed	31 July 2010 (CEE) 1 September 2010 (Turkey) 12 March 2011 (Romania)
Replaced by	Playhouse Disney (most countries)
Former names	Fox Kids Play
Links
Website	web.archive.org/web/20090117151205/http://jetixplay.tv (archived)
Availability

Jetix Play (Formerly Fox Kids Play) was a children's brand used by Jetix Europe for various uses, mainly as a sister channel to Jetix.

Jetix Play did exist as a sister channel to Jetix that was available in various CEE and MENA countries. The channel originally launched in January 2003[100] as Fox Kids Play in Poland, and later launched in October 2003 in CEE (Including Russia) and MENA regions (including Turkey). On 1 January 2005, Fox Kids Play was rebranded as Jetix Play.[101]

Fox Kids Play and Jetix Play were available 12 hours per day, from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M. On November 1, 2008, Jetix Play increased its broadcast period from 12 to almost 17 hours per day, from 6 A.M. to 10:45 P.M.[102]

Jetix Play was aimed at a younger audience than the main Jetix channel and showed mainly classic animated cartoons and animated television series from the Saban Entertainment/ABC Family Worldwide catalogue as well as some DIC Entertainment shows.

After The Walt Disney Company increased their ownership in Jetix Europe, they planned to rebrand the channels after Jetix's rebranding into Disney XD or Disney Channel. The CEE and Polish feeds were closed down on 1 August 2010,[18] in Turkey on 1 September 2010[103] and was lastly closed in Romania, on March 12, 2011.[92] The channel was replaced with Playhouse Disney/Disney Junior in most regions.

In the United Kingdom, Fox Kids Europe launched an interactive VOD channel on Telewest under the Fox Kids Play brand in July 2003.[104] The service extended to Sky Digital in March 2004.

In the Netherlands, Jetix Play did exist as a pre-school-focused morning block on Jetix, airing shows aimed towards younger children.[105] Between 2006-2007, in Romania and other CEE countries, Jetix Play was available as a programming block which aired classic animated shows from Saban Entertainment and ABC Family Worldwide.[106][107][108]