Aspect ratio?

So sometime in December I DVRed both the first and second Zenon movies on an HD broadcast, and to my surprise, they were in widescreen! It was interesting to me since these movies were filmed so long ago and were made for TV. I even looked up some youtube videos and such to see if it was just cropped or something but it isn't. It looks like it was originally filmed widescreen. And it's definitely NOT stretched to make it widescreen because I HATE that and would notice it immediately.

So I guess I'm just wondering - does anyone know why it was filmed it widescreen when it was made for TV back in the day? I find it really interesting and wonder if anyone had any insight.

For comparison, I also recorded Get a Clue, Z3, and the Jett Jackson movie. Get a Clue is widescreen also while the other two are fullscreen. I suppose it could also be them being lazy and just not broadcasting it in widescreen, but I don't know why that would be so. Any thoughts? :)