‘You’re Watching Disney Channel’, a popular catchphrase for all the kids who tuned into Disney shows vigorously throughout the 2000s-10’s. When was the last time you heard that sentence? If you haven’t noticed, the devolution of Disney Channel has seeped into the media landscape of today. What used to bring excitement to our generation by watching a new episode air, now waits to be streamed by non-existent Gen Alpha viewers.
Rushing home from school, dropping off our backpacks, and gluing our eyes to the screen to watch the new ‘Hannah Montana’ episode at 4 pm used to be the routine in the early 2000s. Throughout what’s considered old Disney, which spanned from the early 2000s to early 2010s, those shows were aired for live viewers, and if you missed it, you were lucky to catch a rerun of it before being trampled by spoilers the next day. During this era, kids watching these shows would range from nine to fourteen (tween age), a dramatic difference from the new Disney viewers, starting at seven years old, and ending as early as eleven. This difference might not look drastic, but it supports a hidden theme of Disney’s declining quality, media type, and plot, which is no longer capable of grasping the rapid-paced minds of Gen Alpha. Multiple sources have stated that the lack of “linear television shows” has led to a lack of viewers. Linear TV shows are a type of media that follow a plot line over a long period of time, where prior knowledge will most likely be needed to understand the content. Old Disney shows such as ‘Hannah Montana’, ‘KC: Undercover’, and ‘Wizards of Waverly Place’ are all shows that carry a linear plot; one that keeps viewers engaged to keep watching more and more to discover secrets, plot twists, and more of the action. However, there is a common theme in new Disney content that wraps up the plot at the end of the episode, such as ‘Coop and Cami: Ask The World’, which was released in 2018, and followed story lines that would be solved by the end of the episode, leaving viewers left not knowing what else to expect or come back for.
But what about the “Gap Year”? What about the years of the kids born at the end of old Disney, and lived through the older parts of new Disney? After talking to a Disney fanatic, Olivia McCrary, she discussed how “Old Disney” seemed like they “knew what they were doing and knew what audience they were doing it for…It feels like [new Disney] mak[es] shows to have shows[instead of] putting effort to make them good.” Therefore, McCrary, born in 2009, still sees the blatant difference in effort, media type, and structure from shows “before and after”, even while not presently living in the “2000s Disney Movement”.
Furthermore, the decline of Disney has been visible not only in common perception, but also statistically. According to the LA Times, “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”. This number mind-blowingly changes the thought and development of Disney Channel and how they haven’t been able to keep up with even Disney content from only a couple years ago.
In conclusion, the fall of Disney has become extremely visible in modern media. In recent months, it has regenerated viewers from movies such as ‘Zombies: Dawn of the Vampires’, which was trending over social media and Spotify during their world tour. However, multiple sources have stated that Disney hasn’t and won’t go back on the legendary track it rode in the 2000s unless we make a change. If we can bring back the type of movies that would make us rush home to watch or beg our parents to buy tickets for, we might have a shot of rebranding the Disney name to what we knew and loved, something that showcases the effort and structure of each episode or scene to make them vastly different and special. Fixing the lack of structure that Disney is providing to bring Disney back, and stop the downfall.
