In a matter of weeks, the number of specialty television channels in Canada for children is going to drop dramatically.
Earlier this summer, Corus began telling distributors it planned to shut down ABC Spark, Nickelodeon, La Chaîne Disney, Disney XD and Disney Jr., effective Sept. 1. While it’s not a complete pullout of children’s TV — it will keep Cartoon Network, Boomerang, the English Disney Channel, Treehouse and YTV — it’s a major cutback, driven by the broadcasting company’s dire financial situation.
Then on Monday, WildBrain informed its investors that it was pulling out of regulated Canadian TV completely, shutting down Family Channel, Family Jr., WildBrainTV (formerly Family CHRGD) and Télémagino, 37 years after the original Family Channel launched. (No date has been set, but it will happen “in the coming months.”)
In their case, the move was driven mainly by the fact that both Bell and Rogers chose to drop the services, and WildBrain was unsuccessful in getting the CRTC to rule that they had subjected them to unfair treatment. The result of these decisions was a failure of its planned sale of two thirds of its TV assets to a company called IoM Media Ventures.
Outside of the public broadcasters like CBC and foreign streaming services, Corus and WildBrain were responsible for just about all English-language children’s TV in Canada.
Neither Corus nor WildBrain is required to provide full public info on specialty channel financials in their CRTC reports, but what we do know is:
- ABC Spark saw its revenues drop from $15.9 million in 2020 to $7.5 million in 2024, and despite an 18% cut in programming expenses last year, it continued to lose money
- Boomerang’s revenues dropped from $2.4 million in 2020 to $1.5 million in 2024, which was less than half its programming costs alone
- Disney Jr. saw its revenues decline an average of 8% a year, while its programming costs increased 28% a year
- Disney XD saw its revenues decline an average of 10% a year
- La Chaîne Disney was losing an average of 18% a year in revenues
- Nickelodeon was seeing average revenue declines of 12% a year and spent more in programming than it got in total revenue despite a 37.5% cut in its programming budget in 2022-23
Based on their CRTC returns for 2023-24, these nine channels invested $11.1 million in Canadian programming that year. That’s a small fraction of the $387 million spent on Canadian children’s programming that year across the industry, but when it was described as a “crisis” even before these cuts, you can imagine how they feel about it now.
This is sad news. My nieces only watched children’s programmes through many of those channels. They don’t have streaming services other then then services such as FuboTV where they got many of those children’s programming.
Now it will force their parents to get a new service that has the programs they love.
The real crisis here is the odd expectations that hundreds of millions of dollars are going to be spent on what is effectively a dying (or nearly dead) marketplace.
If Bell could make money carrying the programming, they most certainly would. They won’t carry it if they can make more carrying something else or nothing at all. Rogers and most of the other programming leech cable companies are the same. They will run what makes money, and if it makes enough money, they will make their own. This is why they moved it to an online platform.
Cable TV now is mostly sports and US network TV. Nothing else.
When I was young (Gen X’er), we didn’t have speciality channels. We had the main network affiliates. And there was always something for kids on. Saturday morning TV was huge. Sometimes even Sunday mornings. The CBC ran the Bugs Bunny Cartoons on Saturday afternoon. And when we would get back from school, almost every channel had programming, usually reruns, for us to watch. Everything from, Bullwinkle and Rocky, The Munsters, The Pink Panther show, the Flintstones, Star Trek etc, etc.
How about we get back to offering some of that programming on the main channels.
But, the main channels are run by people with no vision or sense.
Now, they run talk shows featuring dysfunctional people. How about they drop that crap.
That’s why they are loosing viewers.
If you use a TV antenna in the Montreal area, you can find over the air channels that have kid, and kid friendly programming.
WPTZ-TV 5.3 – MeTV
WETK-TV 33.4 – PBS Kids
WFFF-TV 44.4 – Antenna TV
WCFE-TV 57.3 – PBS Kids
WCFE-TV 57, is the easiest one to pick up in the Montreal area. Even a indoor antenna will work.
Especially, in the south west of the island of Montreal.
As for the speciality cable channels, there are going to be a lot more shutting down.
That business model is finished.
If you want to see what’s happening, you should follow the Cord-Cutter News on YouTube.
Here is a direct link to the home page.
https://www.youtube.com/@CordCuttersNews
They are losing viewers because kids are on their tablets watching Tiktok and their game consoles playing Minecraft or whatver game is in fashion…. Juste NOT watching Kid’s shows on TV… They don’t even want to watch TV, just like I didn’t want to watch live-action kid’s show of the 60’s when I was a kid, because cartoons were all the rage in the 80s and that’s what I wanted to watch. Old-style. linear television is dying, average age for TV viewers is like 60 now, and even live sports are not enough to bring back the youth market…. Been in this industry 28 years now, and I might not even make it to my retirement in 10 years before it all collapses…
There will always be content, but “TV Channels” are a thing of the past…. Have you used the “new” Bell FIBE TV boxes? The menu are Netflix style, you basically can’t even “watch TV” in the old-school way anymore, just browsing the channels “to see what’s on”… You’re stuck going through ALL the channels, even those you don’t subscribe to…. It’s no fun to browse at all… They make it so crappy to navigate with the guide and everything so that you end up just watching on-demand. That’s what they want, because then they’ll be able to deliver you custom-tailored ads that earn way more what generic ones, like Youtube and other social media do.
So no surprise they’re cutting all the Youth oriented TV channels, the Youth are simply not watching their content on TV…
Will children notice? I guess they might if their parents notice. Not much of a lobby group.
Nelvana studios , the last victim of Children’s tv massacre closed its doors.
https://piratesandprincesses.net/rip-nelvana-animation-studio-behind-star-wars-cartoons-beetlejuice-and-care-bears-closes-its-doors/
Nelvana actually didn’t get shot down, they just halted production for now.
Treehouse and YTV also lost Nickelodeon, as a result of Corus’ expired rights to continue broadcasting the content following the closure of Nick.
Causes totally are Corus’ continued financial pressure and immediate drop of linear TV, and Wildbrain’s loss of carriage agreements with Rogers and Bell, saying that the remaining channels are no longer commercially viable. This also temporarily halted Nelvana’s productions that were in development and/or planned after rumors of Nelvana shutting down (but it is not), and Disney Channel losing multiple Disney shows (including Big City Greens and Bluey) that finished their series finales (aka final episode of shows).
But, on September 23rd, 2025, a Corus spokesman said that CMT would cease broadcasting on December 31st, 2025 at 11:59:59pm, amid to not renew agreements with Paramount Skydance Corporation, due to years of declining viewership and low ratings after the loss of music programming – marking end of Corus’ Paramount Global channels in Canada. I’ve also seen History2 may close too. So, there are no plans whether to rebrand or close any of Corus-owned 24 channels. Meanwhile, the Families confirm closures that will happen on October 22nd, 2025. No time schedule and last shows announced yet.
Channels affected throughout October 1st, 2023-December 31st, 2025:
– VRAK.TV
– Yoopa
– MTV2 Canada
– CHML Hamilton
– Oprah Winfrey Network (Last show: Love and Marriage DC)
– Food Network Canada (Last show: Beat Bobby Flay at 6am) – into Flavour Network – Relaunched by Rogers
– HGTV Canada (Last show: Good Bones at 6AM) – into Home Network; with first show Scott’s Vacation House Rules. – relaunched by Rogers
– Cooking Channel Canada (last show: Good Eats episode Use Your Noodle)
– Magnolia Network Canada (Corus-owned; last show: Beachfrount Bargain Hunt) – relaunched by Rogers
– Animal Planet Canada (Last show: How it’s Made) – into CTV Wild Channel
– MTV Canada (Last show: rerun of the Ridiculousness episode “Tommy Lee” at 11:30 p.m. ET)
– Discovery Channel to USA Network Canada – relaunched by Rogers
– Discovery Velocity to CTV Speed Channel
– Discovery Science to CTV Nature Channel
– Investigation Discovery to Oxygen True Crime – relaunched by Rogers
– BET (Canadian feed expiry back in 2022)
– CBS Sports Network
– WWE Network Canada (last show: WrestleMania Rewind airing at 6am)
– Universal Kids (Last show advertisement: Norman Picklestripes)
– Nickelodeon Canada (Last show: Zoo Diaries episode Monkeys in Trouble)
– Relaunch of Disney Jr (Last show: Bluey episode Tattoo Shop)
– Relaunch of Disney XD (Last Show: Milo Murphy’s Law episode “Picture Day / Agee Ientee Diogee” at 11:30pm) – Disney XD Poland now remains internationally, unlike the rollout of Disney+ in Canada.
– ABC Spark (Last movie: This is 40) – Scream back in 2001 ceased to exist in 2009, as well as Dusk in 2012.
– La Chaine Disney (Last show: French dub of 3 Amigonauts, with the episode “Glasses Half Fail / Burt’s Biggest Boom”) – 10th anniversary of Disney Channel launches in Canada, after which the channel space created by Teletoon Retro ceased to exist.
– Treehouse TV (Last Nick Jr show: Blaze and the Monster Machines) – Loss of Nickelodeon programming
– YTV Canada (Last Nick show” Spongebob Squarepants; at 4am) – Loss of Nickelodeon programming
– CMT Canada
– Family Channel
– Family Jr
– Familie Jr (Telemagino)
– Family CHRGD (WildbrainTV)
NOTE: History2 Canada, Movietime, Dejaview are not closing. CMT only is.
ABC Spark is not a kids channel, it’s the Canadian version of Freeform / ABC Family. Also, the channels that Corus shut down were all import dumps and rerun farms. Of course they were going to get rid of such worthless cable channels eventually.
Why can’t “the media” be bothered to do any research before posting this clickbait, fear-mongering nonsense?