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BabyTV stopped broadcasting in Canada on 7 August, providers across cable, satellite and streaming all cut it at midnight, and the standalone streaming service that carried the live channel is closing at the end of this month. The website has already gone, redirecting to a generic Disney TV portal. If you have not thought about that channel in a decade, that is roughly the point.
What makes it worth a minute is the shape of the exit. This was not one decision, it was a slow bleed: Japan in 2021, Latvia in 2022, Italy plus Russia and Belarus later the same year, Southeast Asia in 2023, Taiwan in 2024, Brazil in 2025, France in September 2025, now Canada. A channel that started in Israel in 2003 and went international in 2005 has been leaving markets one contract renewal at a time for five straight years, and Disney has never had to announce a shutdown, only a series of non renewals.
The bit I did not expect is that the streaming service is going too. Usually the pitch is that linear dies and the content lives on inside the big app. Here the content is not obviously going anywhere. Disney has Disney Junior and has clearly decided a separate under fours brand is not worth carrying, which tells you something about how thin the margins on those niche channels really were.
If your provider still lists a stack of specialty channels you never open, this is what that looks like from the inside. Which one on your lineup do you expect to vanish next without a press release?
What makes it worth a minute is the shape of the exit. This was not one decision, it was a slow bleed: Japan in 2021, Latvia in 2022, Italy plus Russia and Belarus later the same year, Southeast Asia in 2023, Taiwan in 2024, Brazil in 2025, France in September 2025, now Canada. A channel that started in Israel in 2003 and went international in 2005 has been leaving markets one contract renewal at a time for five straight years, and Disney has never had to announce a shutdown, only a series of non renewals.
The bit I did not expect is that the streaming service is going too. Usually the pitch is that linear dies and the content lives on inside the big app. Here the content is not obviously going anywhere. Disney has Disney Junior and has clearly decided a separate under fours brand is not worth carrying, which tells you something about how thin the margins on those niche channels really were.
If your provider still lists a stack of specialty channels you never open, this is what that looks like from the inside. Which one on your lineup do you expect to vanish next without a press release?
