Two decades after Astral Media quietly launched Family Channel as Canada’s first children’s-oriented broadcaster with only 200,000 subscribers, it has become the big kid on the block with 5.8 million viewers (2+). In 2008, it also garnered the coveted number one English-language pay and specialty channel status in Canada.

This classic success story is a result of 60% Disney programming carefully combined with brash original shows from Canadian producers, including Life with Derek, created by Toronto’s Shaftesbury Films, which has sold to more than 100 countries.

Disney TV movies such as Camp Rock and High School Musical 2 each attracted approximately one million viewers nationwide, while series Wizards of Waverly Place and Hannah Montana also rank high among the service’s biggest winners.

Family’s relationship with Disney is the key to its success, although one top Astral executive admits laughingly that the broadcaster originally stumbled out of the gate.

‘One of my favorite Family memories is the day the service launched,’ recalls John Riley, Astral Television Networks president.

‘We made the mistake of thinking the best time to launch a service is at the beginning of the broadcast day, 6 a.m.,’ explains Riley. ‘This meant we all had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to be in the office for the launch. The first show was Disney Channel’s Mousercize, an exercise show for kids. We celebrated – we were finally on air! And within 10 minutes we were off air, thanks to a technical glitch. This glitch was fixed pretty promptly, but I noticed we did not receive a single call while the signal was down. I guess our subscribers were smarter than we were; they were still sleeping.’

Joining Riley to figuratively blow out the 20th birthday candles are Astral Media president and CEO Ian Greenberg, Family VP/GM Joe Tedesco, senior programming VP (and commissioning editor) Kevin Wright and senior sales and marketing VP Dominic Vivolo.

Proudly standing at the table, waiting for their slice of cake, are Family’s aunts and uncles – the executives at Walt Disney Company, from television network president Anne Sweeney to VP worldwide programming strategy David Levine.

‘There’s no other company in the world that takes as much of [Disney’s] kids content as Astral and Family,’ says Levine.

‘There’s no other channel in the world that we’ve licensed our name to use on a day-to-day basis, and those circumstances have created a valuable relationship, unique to Disney,’ he underlines. ‘This is a 24-hour Disney channel that’s on the air every day with loads of marketing, and they’ve done an incredible job.’

Nonetheless, it was Astral’s Greenberg who shepherded Family’s initial broadcast application through the CRTC and persuaded the legendary Mickey Mouse company to come on board as the programming base for the station in the ’80s.

Greenberg recalls how tough it was to build a relationship with his American colleagues in the beginning. ‘Every time there’s a change in a large organization like Disney, it’s like you have to start over again – reintroduce yourself and make sure you have their confidence,’ says Greenberg, over the phone from Astral’s headquarters in downtown Montreal.

‘I remember meeting Geraldine [Laybourne, then Disney’s TV head and latterly the founder of the Oxygen Channel] for the first time,’ Greenberg remembers. ‘We spent several hours pitching her in L.A.; at that point our relationship with Disney was still quite new. After a few hours, she said to me, ‘You know, I’ve got a strategy when I hear someone. I either believe them and have faith in what they can do or I don’t. You’ve impressed me, and I think you’ll be a good partner. I have only one thing to tell you: don’t ever let me down.”

While Greenberg is amused recalling the intensity of the encounter, he and the whole Family team are keenly aware of how important their relationship with Disney is.

‘We make jokes… but Disney has seen how well we’ve guarded their name and reputation in Canada,’ he points out. ‘And we’ve surrounded their shows with series of our own like The Latest Buzz [from Decode Entertainment] and Life with Derek.’

Wright is naturally pleased with the phenomenal response to Life with Derek, which is a hit on the U.S. Disney Channel and on stations around the world. ‘The show has really struck a chord with audiences, who can relate to the modern reality of mixed families,’ he says.

Wright cites Canadian producers like Decode, Shaftesbury and Amberwood Entertainment (makers of Katie & Orbie) as being ‘some of the best in the world.’

Canadian talent has benefited from the huge audience growth of the channel, which has given Wright and his colleagues far more spending power. To date, Family has invested over $160 million in original productions. That economic clout is a result of the channel’s move to an expanded basic tier in major Canadian markets in the late ’90s.

Over a two-year period, from the fall of 1997 to 1999, the number of viewers increased from 400,000 to 3.3 million. Though Family, like all pay services, is commercial-free, it acts more like a specialty channel.

The change in fee structure, which is now billed as a cable service, ‘allowed us to broaden our base,’ says Greenberg. ‘Having so many more subscribers – almost a 10-to-1 increase – made sense to everyone, even though our revenue per viewer went down considerably.’

Family’s other key shift occurred in the fall of 2002, when the station was rebranded (See story p.19). ‘Never a Dull Moment’ replaced ‘Television You Can Trust’ as a branding line as the channel repositioned itself for the tween – eight- to 14-year-olds – market. According to Vivolo, ‘families mean never a dull moment.

‘If you think about the kitchen as the central hub of the family,’ Vivolo continues, ‘the refrigerator door is the place you put all your messages. And when you look at those notes and think about the dynamics of family life, well, it’s never dull, is it?’

Vivolo worked with John Street Advertising and Family’s own art department to create a look and feel for the station’s older demographic.

‘Programming is one of the keys of marketing. It supports the brand. Packaging, pricing, promotions – everything must support the brand. That’s what made us so successful,’ he says.

The Playhouse Disney channel was launched in 2007 to specifically serve the younger two-to-seven audience.

– With files from Suzan Ayscough