Many television films have been produced for Disney Channel, an American family-oriented basic cable channel and former premium television channel since its launch on April 18, 1983. Until October 1997, films were released under the banner name of Disney Channel Premiere Films; since then, the films are currently released under the Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM) banner.Most of these films were subsequently released on VHS, DVD, or, more recently, Blu-ray. However, many more entries in the Disney Channel film library were never released in any home video format. Originally, the films were released on DVD months after their Disney Channel premieres, but beginning with Princess Protection Program in 2009, DVDs for DCOMs have been released one week after their television premieres. Also, although DCOMs have been produced in widescreen HD format since mid-2005, the 2009 release of Princess Protection Program became the first DCOM to appear in widescreen DVD viewing format.
The highest-rated premiere for the banner/brand came in August 2007, when High School Musical 2 set a record for basic cable with 17.2 million viewers. The second highest-rated premiere is held by Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie, which premiered with 11.4 million viewers. Other major DCOM franchises include Halloweentown, Zenon, Twitches, The Cheetah Girls, Camp Rock, Teen Beach, Descendants, and Zombies.
During the Memorial Day holiday weekend of 2016, Disney Channel began to air many older DCOMs in a specialized marathon programming block in celebration of its 100th film, Adventures in Babysitting. Disney Channel broadcast all previous 99 Disney Channel Original Movies that came before it, beginning with the 51 most popular films airing over the four-day weekend, beginning May 27, 2016 and continuing throughout the following month until the June 24 premiere of the aforementioned 100th Disney Channel Original Movie.
