JimJam is an international children's preschool television channel operated by AMC Networks International Central and Northern Europe, which originally launched in Italy on Sky in 2006 and is now available across Europe and Africa.
JimJam was launched on 1 October 2006. In September 2007, HIT Entertainment and Chellomedia (European content division of Liberty Global, currently AMC Networks International) formed a joint venture to run a children's channel. The channel was advertised as international, with plans to start cable and satellite broadcast in Western and Eastern Europe and then expand broadcasting worldwide (outside the UK, Ireland, US and Canada).
The channel was expanded to Central and Eastern Europe in December 2007. By March 2008, JimJam launched in the Netherlands and Switzerland, and continued expansion through MENA on Showtime Arabia and Russia and Bulgaria in July. In November 2008, it launched in Southeast Asia. On 28 November 2008, it launched in Portugal. In January 2010, the channel launched in Israel on Yes,
in 2018, JimJam was rebranded with a new logo and three mascots, Jim, Jam and Star.
Thomas would be one of the first shows to aired on the Central and Eastern Europe feeds, The original Italian feed would only get thomas in June of 2008.
Series premieres
Pan-European feed
- Series 1 - 1 January 2008
- Series 2 - 14 January 2008
- Series 3 - 7 May 2008
- Series 4 - 24 July 2009
- Series 5 - 6 August 2009
- Series 6 - 1 September 2009
- Series 7 - 14 September 2009
- Series 8 - 1 November 2009
- Series 9 - 14 November 2009
- Series 10 - 1 April 2010
- Series 11 - 14 April 2010
- Series 18 - 19 December 2019
- Series 19 - 28 December 2019
Specials premieres
Pan-European feed
- Calling All Engines! - 26 September 2009
- The Great Discovery - 5 March 2011
- Hero of the Rails - 3 November 2019
- Misty Island Rescue - 5th January 2020
- Day of the Diesels - 17th November 2019
- Blue Mountain Mystery - 24 November 2019
- King of the Railway - 8 December 2019
- Tale of the Brave - 15 December 2019
- Sodor's Legend of the Lost Treasure - 1 December 2019
Trivia
- The episodes always air in blocks of two, consecutively, with a very short JimJam ident between them.
- All Thomas episodes shown on JimJam have UK title cards, thus there are no credits for foreign dubs.
- On March 5 2011, A Bad Day for Sir Handel aired in Romania without any narration.
- The Dutch dubs of the fourteenth and fifteenth series were exclusive to the Dutch JimJam channel.
- The last six episodes of Series 18 were considered part of Series 19.
- Series 18 and 19 feature the Polish logo (Tomek i przyjaciele) in all countries and the Engine Roll Call does not feature any on-screen lyrics.