Teletoon Retro


Teletoon Retro is a former Canadian specialty channel that was owned by Corus Entertainment that was based on the Teletoon programming block. The service was dedicated to broadcasting classic animated television programs as well as some live-action series.
Along with Télétoon Rétro, it was available in over nine million Canadian households as of 2013; together they had the most subscribers among the digital Canadian specialty channels.
Teletoon Retro was shut down on September 1, 2015, with Cartoon Network inheriting the network's CRTC license, and some of its channel.

History

Teletoon Retro began as a programming block on Teletoon. On November 24, 2000, Teletoon Canada was given approval by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to launch a national English language category 2 specialty channel named Teletoon Retro. The channel never made it to air.
Plans to launch the channel arose again in 2005, when on October 25, Teletoon Canada was given approval again to launch Teletoon Retro. The channel was launched at 6:00 PM EST on October 1, 2007 with its first program being The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show. To coincide with the channel's launch, Teletoon briefly relaunched the Retro programming block. A French language counterpart, titled Télétoon Rétro, which had been given approval to be launched at the same time as Teletoon Retro, was launched on September 4, 2008.
On February 4, 2013, the channel underwent a refresh with new graphics and bumpers created by John Lee, retiring the "Television sets" era from 2009 to 2013. In addition, the channel also underwent a new logo, and the male announcer was dropped and replaced with a female announcer. On March 4, 2013, Corus Entertainment announced that it would acquire Astral Media's 50% ownership interest in Teletoon Canada. The purchase was in relation to Bell Media's pending takeover of Astral. 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 Canada and it was purchased by Corus on January 1, 2014. The channel continues to be owned by Teletoon Canada, now wholly owned by Corus Entertainment under its Corus Kids division.
On March 1, 2014, a high definition simulcast of the channel was launched. It was only available on Cogeco and Bell Fibe TV.
In August 2015, Teletoon Retro's website announced that the channel would be shut down effective September 1, 2015; some of its programming was moved to the main Teletoon network. On some providers, Teletoon Retro was replaced by either Disney Channel or Cartoon Network. The transition was legally structured so that Cartoon Network would cease to exist as a separately-licensed service as of September 1, 2015, and henceforth operate under Teletoon Retro's category B license instead.The final program broadcast was The Mighty Hercules at 11:59:PM ET on August 31, 2015

Former programming

Teletoon Retro primarily aired classic animated programming; its CRTC license specified that programming had to have been produced at least 10 years prior. While primarily devoted to animation, its CRTC license allowed as much as 10% of its programming to be live action; as such, it also aired several live-action series, such as Batman, Fraggle Rock, and Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.