Teletoon (Channel History)

Télétoon is a Canadian French language specialty channel owned by Teletoon Canada,Inc.,a subsidiary of Corus Entertainment. Its name is a portmanteau of "télévision" and "cartoon". Until March 2023,the channel had an English-language counterpart named Teletoon,which has since been renamed as Cartoon Network in March 26th 2023,although Télétoon remains its French-language counterpart and now known as Télétoon Québec. As of 2013,the channel has been available in over 7.3 million Canadian households.

## **Changes In Ownership:**

When launched,the channel was owned by a consortium made up of various other Canadian specialty services and producers; Family Channel acting as a managing partner at 53.3% (in a partnership with Astral Media and Western International Communications),YTV at 26.7% (under Shaw Communications),Cinar and Nelvana with 10% each. Changes of ownership have occurred since 1999,starting when Corus Entertainment was spun off from Shaw Communications. In 2000,Western International Communications sold its stake of Télétoon to Corus Entertainment. Corus,in the same year,acquired Nelvana,another company who owned a stake of Télétoon. Due to a complaint from the CRTR,Corus sold the stake to Astral Media in 2001. Through various acquisitions over the years,Cinar Films came to own a 20% stake,and Astral Media and Corus Entertainment each owned a 40% stake. In 2006,Cinar sold 10% of its stake of Teletoon to each of Astral and Corus,leading the two companies to each own 50% in Télétoon.

Bell filed a new application for the proposed takeover with CRTR on March 6th 2013. Corus' purchase was cleared by the Competition Bureau on March 18th. On December 20th 2013,the CRTR approved Corus' full ownership of Teletoon Canada and it was purchased by Corus on January 1st 2014. The channel continues to be owned by Teletoon Canada,now wholly owned by Corus Entertainment under its Corus Kids and Corus Media Divisions.

Ever since Corus Entertainment gained full control of Teletoon,the network has really dropped the ball when it comes to properly promoting its programs. For example; the second season of *Power Rangers Dino Charge* was incorrectly called *Super Dino Charge*,instead of *Dino Supercharge* and the final season of *Ultimate Spider-Man* was promoted as a new series. Later on,Teletoon and the original Canadian incarnation of Cartoon Network promoted the *Ben 10* reboot as the fifth season of the original series. In the case of the Ben 10 reboot,Télétoon not only followed its English counterpart's promotion but used images from the original series to promote it.

After Corus gained full ownership of Teletoon,incidents involving original and acquired programming have become very frequent. An *entire network* was screwed over in Fall 2015,when Teletoon Retro (despite having a very large subscriber base with its French counterpart) was shut down to make room for the newly launched Disney Channel and its siblings,as well as to increase distribution for Cartoon Network and [adult swim]. However,as a result,Teletoon briefly returned to airing classic cartoons and introduced modern versions of classics (like *Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production*, *Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!*, and *ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks*). Plus,Teletoon at Night was pushed back to a shorter run-time on Mondays-Thursdays,allowing Teletoon to air more action cartoons,some of which have previously been screwed over. Though they ended up screwing over *Teen Titans Go!*,Teletoon would start airing the original *Teen Titans* animated series (which had originally aired on YTV in its heyday) in reruns. Corus Entertainment would begin airing all of Cartoon Network and Adult Swim's shows exclusively on their Canadian counterparts. However,for some reason,reruns for Cartoon Cartoons and other contemporary shows from CN were removed from Cartoon Network Canada's schedule for a whole year. Instead,Corus used the channel to burn off recent Teletoon programming (to fulfill CanCon requirements). Even worse,for months after the switch,the channel never aired one single episode of *Adventure Time* nor *Regular Show*. Another downside to the switch was that,while Cartoon Network now has wider carriage,it was still a higher-tier network on some providers. This means that if CN wasn't in their current package,subscribers would have to pay extra. Plus,whereas [adult swim] launched their own SVOD app in Canada to allow Canadians to legally watch their original programming,including shows that weren't being aired on the Canadian version nor Teletoon at Night,Cartoon Network programming couldn't be streamed anywhere at the time. Perhaps realizing this,Corus would slowly phase Cartoon Network programming back to Teletoon over the next year.

## **Schedules Mess:**

* *Knuckleheads* originally had an eight-episode sneak peak on Télétoon la nuit. When the series officially premiered in Fall 2012,it was moved to the daytime schedule. It has since moved back to the nighttime block,or rather,the block itself moved to the time the series was airing.
* Their Run Of The Adventures Of Teddy Ruxpin in 1999 was broadcast at 10:00 AM,when the target demographic was in school.