Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and dozens of other popular cartoon characters may soon be available around-the-clock with the launch of a new Disney cable channel.
“We have been waiting for this moment for so long,” Marina Zhigalova-Ozkan, general director of Disney's Russia office, said at a news conference Wednesday.
The channel will launch Aug. 10 and reach more than 4 million Russian households, she said.
Disney had hoped to create the channel with local partner Media One TV last year in a $233 million deal that would have seen it buy a 49 percent stake in the Russian company. But the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service nixed the purchase, saying documents submitted by Disney were incomplete.
Disney will now work through a different Russian partner, Telko Media, which also cooperates with the National Geographic Channel, Jetix and Euronews.
Zhigalova-Ozkan declined to say how much Disney would spend to launch the channel, saying only that its business in Russia was not affected by the economic recession. “From the point of our brand, we have not felt it. Our brand is very popular here,” she said.
Industry analysts said Disney will face strong competition from established U.S. rivals Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, which started to broadcast in Russia in 1998 and 2005, respectively.
During the Soviet era, Disney cartoons were rarely shown, and when they were, it was for select audiences like the children of diplomats.
In the early 1990s, Disney took the forefront in translating hundreds of its cartoons into Russian, and Russian television regularly broadcast animated series like "DuckTales," which follows the adventures of the wealthy Scrooge McDuck and his three nephews.
Anna Atamanova, a cartoon artist and daughter of Soviet animator Lev Atamanov, said that despite their limited screening in Soviet times, Disney cartoons made an impact on culture through classic storylines in which good triumphs over evil. The impact is much less these days, she told The Moscow Times. “Today, the ideology has become different. It is all about Uncle Scrooge and money,” she said.