Astro and Walt Disney team up to introduce new channel

PETALING JAYA: Astro Malaysia Holdings (Astro) and The Walt Disney Co South-East Asia (Walt Disney) have teamed up to introduce a new channel for older children.

Malaysia is the first of South-East Asian countries to launch the Disney XD, a new channel catered for children aged between six and 14. It will be the first international channel for children on Astro's basic platform, offering its content in English, Bahasa Malaysia, Mandarin and Tamil.

“Malaysia is an important and growing market with a large audience that has a huge appetite for great stories and characters. The unique strength and appeal of Disney XD combined with the distribution commitment of Astro, give us the great opportunity to capture the hearts of millions of viewers across the country,” Walt Disney managing director Robert Gilby said.

Starting Sept 15, Disney XD will be available on Astro in both standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD). It will feature a mix live action and animated programming targetted at boys aged six to 14.

It will be home to new Marvel series featuring superheroes such as Spider-Man and Iron Man, amongst others.

“Although the design of Disney XD is focused to cater for boys in that age group, the reality is that girls and grown ups will watch it too,” said Astro chief operating officer Henry Tan.

Astro, which currently boasts 3.1 million customers, is more focused on making its content offering more relevant.

“If we provide relevance, the ratings will follow. The real issue we are concerned about is providing choice and quality content to our customers,” Tan said.

Disney XD's content will span television, online and video-on-demand platforms.

“We are pleased to make Disney XD available in both SD and HD to all Astro customers. The launch of Disney XD with dedicated programming and multi-language options, specifically for Malaysian audience is another demonstration of our strong collaboration with Disney,” Tan said.

Disney XD will be a part of Astro's basic package as the third Disney 24-hour channel on Astro.