Why did Disney stop televising their Happy Easter Parades?

[DodgerGirl]

My mom and I got to view some past recordings of the Walt Disney Happy Easter Parade on Youtube and it got me to thinking that ABC should bring these parades back as an Easter tradition and I wonder why Disney quit televising them? Because it seems odd that the only Disney parade shown on TV on ABC is their Christmas parade so why did they stop televising the Happy Easter Parade? I think ABC really should air them on Easter every year

 

[DodgerGirl]

I had an interesting conversation with my dad about this and he agrees with me that ABC should revive the Walt Disney Happy Easter Parades because in my dad's eyes he thought ABC stopped televising them because of how much money it cost Disney to do and produce. But I think during the time that Roy E. Disney was alive and Michael Eisner was CEO of Disney he thought he could ask Michael Eisner to ask ABC for ideas to televise their parades and the Happy Easter Parade was his chance to improve it. But it's hard to believe that the only surviving Disney TV parade on ABC now is the Disney Christmas Parade and I think ABC should bring the Happy Easter Parade back to TV because it was an Easter tradition for families to watch. But I also think what caused the death of Disney's Happy Easter Parade was the cost of sponsorship plugs because every Easter Parade was sponsored by Johnson & Johnson and the Orlando Tourism Board and rarely you saw Nabisco Teddy Grahams and Tylenol sponsor the parades. But no longer televising the Easter Parades on ABC was a big mistake for Disney to do

 

[TexasEric]

This is where I think Disney marketing really fails—the parades and other content that show the park itself are a really opportunity to get people to see what they are missing. They should be televised. And, they should be recording more park content for Disney+. I would love to see some of the older fireworks shows on Disney+. Sadly, I have to watch jittery versions that someone made with a crappy phone on YouTube.

 

[Jwaire]

Money. They still broadcast the Ten Commandments, so it’s not a religious objection. It’s very likely that DPEP was paying for that spot on ABC as sort of an infomercial or at least sharing the cost.

 

[MommaKetch]

I would love to see some of the older fireworks shows on Disney+. Sadly, I have to watch jittery versions that someone made with a crappy phone on YouTube.

Check out https://youtube.com/@CLIFFLIX?si=P8cg2BVHUPY86pVS

 

[MommaKetch]

@DodgerGirl I agree, I wish they would bring back the Easter parade, and televise it.

In 1991 my cousin was visiting us in Florida during his spring break. We went to MK and happened to catch the Easter parade that was being filmed a few days early, in case it rained out the one on Easter Sunday. Well sure enough, it rained on Easter and they televised the one that we saw. We could see ourselves in the crowd!

So, thinking that the cost of filming two parades, one being live, was just too much.

 

[DodgerGirl]

@DodgerGirl I agree, I wish they would bring back the Easter parade, and televise it.

In 1991 my cousin was visiting us in Florida during his spring break. We went to MK and happened to catch the Easter parade that was being filmed a few days early, in case it rained out the one on Easter Sunday. Well sure enough, it rained on Easter and they televised the one that we saw. We could see ourselves in the crowd!

So, thinking that the cost of filming two parades, one being live, was just too much.

Was that the Easter Parade that had Robby Benson as co-host along with Joan Lunden and Regis Philbin? I remember seeing that parade as the first one I recorded and it was fun to see on TV

 

[MommaKetch]

Possibly? That sounds familiar. My
Mom has it on VHS. I’ll look it up next time I visit her.

 

[aloha7]

My mom and I got to view some past recordings of the Walt Disney Happy Easter Parade on Youtube and it got me to thinking that ABC should bring these parades back as an Easter tradition and I wonder why Disney quit televising them? Because it seems odd that the only Disney parade shown on TV on ABC is their Christmas parade so why did they stop televising the Happy Easter Parade? I think ABC really should air them on Easter every year

I agree.

 

[DodgerGirl]

No longer having the Walt Disney World Happy Easter Parade had to be the biggest mistake ABC had done. Because the way I view it I think ABC was concerned the parade would not be a success if it was televised on TV. But in my eyes it seemed to promote Kissimmee St. Cloud Tourism because Kissimmee St. Cloud's Tourism board was the Happy Easter Parade's biggest sponsor and I think they actually helped ABC gain huge ratings for the parade? What I also think hurt the parade in general was that ABC would rotate hosts and cohosts for the parade. Take for instance when ABC broadcast the Happy Easter Parade they had Ben Vereen with Joan Lunden but then the late Alan Thicke became host along with Joan Lunden and Regis Philbin was like the Al Roker of the Disney Happy Easter Parade but how Regis Philbin became host of the parade in 1992 i'll never understand when ABC should've put Bob Saget or Bronson Pinchot in place of Regis Philbin with Joan Lunden. But ABC should think very seriously about reviving the Walt Disney Happy Easter Parade on TV again because it was a nice Easter tradition like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is to Thanksgiving and it is shocking that the only parade ABC has on TV of Disney is their Christmas parade so Disney should revive the Easter parades for ABC

 

[Nayan]

Disney parades on TV are not as popular as you think. The ratings for 2022 Christmas parade (the only data that is available at this time) was only a .92, meaning less than a million people tuned into watch it. More people watched A Christmas Story reruns and the NBA games than they did the parade.

An Easter Parade would not do well at all, Disney knows this and that's why they do not put one on TV.

 

[DodgerGirl]

I also cannot figure out why they replaced Alan Thicke with Regis Philbin as the host of the 1992-1995 Happy Easter Parades because Alan Thicke should've stayed but Regis was VERY annoying and I think why he was chosen to host the parade along with Joan Lunden was so he could promote Live With Regis And Kathie Lee. But the other thing that I thought was sometimes annoying was they would have celebrities do stuff in the parade. Like in one parade they had skater Nancy Kerrigan ice skate to Aladdin songs and then The Genie appeared and surprised Nancy and I thought that was shocking. About the only cute thing the Easter Parade had was music videos of Mickey Mouse And Minnie Mouse and those were really adorable. I mainly think ABC stopped televising the Happy Easter Parades because they would always preempt their Sunday morning shows like ABC's This Week and why they did this I'll never understand the answer to. But I do agree that ABC seems to have lost interests in Disney parades and the only reason why their Christmas parade is surviving is because I think ABC and Disney wanted to copy the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade but I think why the Easter Parade no longer exists on ABC is they found it was too much trouble to promote and ABC wanted to focus on other programming

 

[Dive Bar Casanova]

Legacy Broadcast TV is probably on it's way out. Especially costly to produce live events unless they draw a heck of an audience. Advertisers spend elsewhere. Streaming and other formats.

 

[Nayan]

Actually Disney did NOT ever televise an Easter Parade. I found this...

https://plandisney.disney.go.com/question/easter-parade-tv-easter-336933/

 

[irlandaise]

Actually Disney did NOT ever televise an Easter Parade. I found this...

https://plandisney.disney.go.com/question/easter-parade-tv-easter-336933/

That page doesn't say that Disney never aired an Easter parade, only that they don't now.

https://d23.com/a-to-z/walt-disney-world-happy-easter-parade-television/

 

[2xcited2sleep]

The Easter parade was broadcast from 1985 - 1999 on ABC. Retro WDW has a few restored videos as well as this press kit from 1990.

 

[Kit Jackson]

Almost any question related to Network/Broadcast television can be answered with some combination of ratings, audiences, sponsors/advertisers, and money. (What follows below applies only to Network/Broadcast. Cable and streaming are significantly different creatures from Network/Broadcast)

My guess, is that the parade did not draw high enough ratings (not enough people were watching). Sponsors felt their advertising dollars could be better spent elsewhere (they did not want to buy ad time during the parade show, because not enough people were watching). ABC felt they could get more money airing something else that would bring in a larger (and/or more desirable) audience and allow them to charge sponsors more money.

Network/Broadcast is more or less a numbers game. It's about the total number of people watching and do the sponsors/advertisers think that is a desirable audience. For the sponsors/advertisers, they decided not enough people were watching and the audience that was watching wasn't worth spending the ad dollars to reach.

What Disney should have done is move to cable, because cable is all about niche/target audiences. With Cable, it's not about the numbers; for the sponsors, it's all about is the specific niche/target audience we want to reach.