Teletoon

History

In 1996, Teletoon was licensed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) after a related application for a channel to be called "Fun TV" had been denied. The channel was launched on October 17, 1997, with the first episode of Caillou. At the time, it was known as The Animation Station before later adding, and then switching to, its current slogan: It's Unreal!

When Teletoon was launched in 1997, it showed more mature fare as the day progressed, with a strong commitment to air diverse and international programming, and the ability to air a great majority of material uncut. A typical weekday broadcast day ran preschool (little kids) content from 4am EST to 3pm EST, then Kids (school-aged) content from 3pm-7pm, then "Family" content from 7pm-9:30pm, then "Adult" content from 9:30pm-4am. More adult cartoons such as Duckman and various anime programs were aired after midnight.

In 1999, Teletoon started airing bumpers with its first mascot, Teletina. These bumpers were made by Spin Productions in Toronto. Several more bumpers using CGI animation made by Guru Studio subsequently premiered on the channel. An updated look for the channel, no longer featuring the original logo, was later created for a partial rebranding in 2005.

The older bumpers were removed in 2007 as part of an on-air rebranding. Said rebrand took place on February 5, 2007; Teletoon's on-air appearance and its website were dramatically changed, the website for The Detour (then the name of its late night block) was moved to teletoon.com, and the aesthetic appearance of both the normal block and The Detour changed.

Four years later, on September 5, 2011, Teletoon's on-air branding changed again to reflect the 50th anniversary of one of its owners, Astral Media, and to reflect the transition to digital television. Since then, Teletoon has begun airing a number of live-Action programs in the daytime, including original series such as My Babysitter's a Vampire and Mudpit, as well as acquired programming and movies. This wasn't the first time the channel has aired live-action programming; Teletoon had aired the live-action Fireball XL-5 during the 1997–98 season. Occasionally, the channel also airs live-action movies related to cartoons and comic books, such as Space Jam, Sin City, and Batman.

After Astral Media's stake in TELETOON Canada Inc was purchased by Corus Entertainment, several of Teletoon's original and acquired shows, primarily live-action series, began airing on YTV. In turn, Teletoon began airing anime series that aired on YTV, including Yu-Gi-Oh!, beginning with Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal II, and Pokémon, beginning with XY and reruns of Pokémon: Advanced. The debut of Zexal, in particular, marks the first time an acquired anime series aired on the channel since the debut of MegaMan NT Warrior back in 2003.

Since its inception, Teletoon was best known for airing television series from Cartoon Network, which itself airs several Canadian animated series (including those from Teletoon's sister channel, YTV). From September 1, 2015 to Fall 2016, original programming from the American channel was moved over to its Canadian counterpart. Around the same time, several programs airing on Teletoon Retro, which closed down on the same date, began airing on Teletoon. Teletoon would also premiere new original programming from Cartoon Network's sister channel, Boomerang.

Ownership

The channel was originally owned by a consortium made up of various other Canadian specialty services and producers: Family Channel acting as managing partner at 53.3% (Western International Communications and The Movie Network (by then a division of Astral Media), YTV at 26.7% (Shaw Communications), and Cinar and Nelvana with 10% each.

Corus Entertainment was spun off from Shaw Communications (who originally owned a stake in Teletoon through YTV) in 1999. In 2000, Corus began to slowly buy out its partners in the service. Western International Communications sold its stake in the service, along with Family, to Corus in 2000, but it had to sell WIC's stakes in Teletoon and Family to Astral Media the next year. Corus bought out Nelvana in 2000 and inherited its stake. Cinar was sold in 2004 to an investment consortium composed of Michael Hirsh, Toper Taylor, and Birch Hill Capital Partners, who renamed the company Cookie Jar; Cookie Jar sold its 20% stake in the service to Corus and Astral in 2006, making it a 50-50 joint venture between the two companies.

On March 4, 2013, Corus Entertainment announced that they would buy Astral's stake in Teletoon and take full ownership of the channel. The purchase was in relation to Bell Media's takeover of Astral (which had earlier been rejected by the CRTC in October 2012, but was restructured to allow the sale of certain Astral Media properties in order to allow the purchase to clear regulatory hurdles). Corus's purchase was cleared by the Competition Bureau two weeks later on March 18; on December 20, 2013, the CRTC approved Corus's full ownership of Teletoon and ownership was transferred on January 1, 2014. The channel continues to be owned by Teletoon Canada, now wholly owned by Corus Entertainment under its Corus Kids division.

Programming

Teletoon predominantly airs animated television series and movies. Its license originally required that 90% of all programs on the channel be animated. Its French-language counterpart contains a different schedule of programs, some being French-dubbed versions of shows such as South Park.

Occasionally, television pilots that have not to date been developed as full series are shown, such as Nemesis and Bob the Slob (both in 2015). Teletoon also airs select programs from Nickelodeon such as ALVINNN! and the Chipmunks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Power Rangers, as well as programs from Cartoon Network.

Original series

At its inception in 1997, the channel had a stated goal of producing 78 half-hours of original content every year, and it has been active in commissioning programming since then. The licence granted by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in 1996 required a gradual increase in the portion of Canadian programming on the schedule by about five percent each year starting from 40% in its first year of operation to 60% by 2002. In 1998, network management decided to focus on renewals instead of new shows – adopting a more cautious strategy than launching a significant number of new series, as it had in the prior year. By 2001, however, the station was noted as possibly being the Canadian channel with the highest spending on original production, having invested in 98 series, including 225 half-hour episodes that fall season.

As a bilingual service, Teletoon/Télétoon maintains two separate broadcast feeds, with a single licence for the English- and French-language channels. It is one of only two Canadian specialty services with such a licence. At the original licensing hearing before the CRTC, the network's operators had stated that the two channels "would be similar in nature and programmed with a similar attitude towards them. But for the reasons of rights availability, for the reasons of the question of advertising to children in Québec and for the reason of dealing with the differences in the market, there might be variations in the services offered." To this end, the station implemented a requirement that all original programming be delivered in both languages. By 2007, however, this condition had been relaxed to apply "whenever possible", and over the following years some original series were only shown on one of the channels.

Current

Yearly

Former

Teletoon HD

On April 18, 2012, Teletoon launched a high definition feed called Teletoon HD, which simulcasts the East Coast standard definition feed. The Eastern version of Teletoon HD is available through Eastlink, Cogeco Cable, Bell TV, Telus Satellite, Shaw Direct, Rogers Cable, and other providers.

Telus Optik TV announced they would carry the Western version of Teletoon HD, which simulcasts the West Coast feed.

Teletoon On Demand

Teletoon On Demand is a video-on-demand channel featuring series from Teletoon.

Teletoon at Night

Launched in September 2002 as "The Detour on Teletoon", the block is an amalgamation of it and "Teletoon Unleashed", an adult programming block. Its French counterpart, Télétoon la nuit, airs on the Francophone Télétoon channel. In September 2009, the block was relaunched under its current name with an overhaul of its on-air appearance.

Teletoon Retro

Teletoon Retro was a Category B digital cable and satellite channel that debuted in Fall 2007, and was named after a program block that featured classic animated series; shows included on the Teletoon Retro channel have included such shows as The Tom and Jerry Show, The Bugs Bunny & Tweety Show, Scooby-Doo, The Flintstones, The Raccoons, The Jetsons, The Pink Panther, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and Inspector Gadget. The channel merged with Teletoon and closed on September 1, 2015 and was replaced with Disney Channel Canada (on Bell TV, EastLink, Telus Optik TV, VMedia, and Videotron), and Cartoon Network (on Shaw Direct/Shaw Cable, Rogers Cable, and SaskTel).

Since then, Teletoon now airs all shows from Teletoon Retro.

Télétoon

Télétoon is the French counterpart to Teletoon which broadcasts most of the shows from its English-language counterpart in French.