Animation broadcasting desolation in the Great White North

In a sequel to a pair of stories I wrote many years back (good god, I'm old now), we're now seeing things play out in reverse. Childrens' animation on Canadian television is now on life support or effectively dead, thanks to a slew of channels from Corus Entertainment and WildBrain Studios (representing the vast majority) getting the plug pulled as of September 1, as reported by Montréal broadcaster Steven Faguy's blog.

Signing off, for the final time

Corus Entertainment's channels (announced this summer) slated for closure as of September 1:

• ABC Spark
• Nickelodeon Canada
• Disney XD Canada
• Disney Jr. Canada
• La Chaîne Disney (the french-language counterpart to Disney Channel Canada)

Corus Entertainment started off as the cable-network division of Shaw Communications, before being spun off into its own company and having nearly all of Shaw's cable and broadcast television/radio stations transferred to it so they can focus on their cable systems and satellite television division, which has since been bought by Rogers Communications (a recurring theme you're going to see in this article).

WildBrain's channels slated for closure as of September 1:

• Family Channel
• Family Jr.
• WildBrainTV (formerly Family CHRGD)
• Télémagino (a french-language kinda-counterpart to Family Jr.)

Wildbrain (formerly DHX, basically a giant mega-zord of mostly DiC Entertainment and CINAR/Cookie Jar Group and others) announced they're shutting down all their channels, exiting the cable channel industry and reverting to being an animation studio only.

How did it come to this?

I can almost understand Corus' closures, since the company is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy after a series of cable television deals and mergers either went south for them or negatively-affected them despite not being directly involved (such as the Warner Bros.-Discovery merger and their later deal with Rogers Communications for cable channels). People having less money to spend on cable television, often choosing to cut the cord and go broadcast-and-internet-only, just made their situation over the past six years worse. Though, without a suitor to buy the badly-indebted company, I can see Corus filing for bankruptcy in the near future.

However, from what I've been able to determine, the Corus and WildBrain closures are related. Corus and WildBrain filed a complaint with Canada's broadcast regulator (the CRTC), stating Canada's two largest Telecom-and-Cable-Network companies, Bell Media, and Rogers Communications. Corus claimed Bell and Rogers was putting them and WildBrain at an unfair advantage via promoting Disney+ and almost ignoring Corus' Disney channels and pretending WildBrain basically didn't exist, but the CRTC could not determine if this was true.

After this, Bell Media announced they were not renewing their agreement to carry WildBrain's channels, cutting them off from about 55% of their potential audience. Rogers then said they were not renewing WildBrain's channels either and that they were shutting down all of their "linear" cable television channels. This removed another 30 to 35% of WildBrain's potential audience. With an 85-90% loss of customers, the company had little choice but to throw in the towel after getting caught in the crossfire between the three larger broadcasters.

As if to run salt into an already gaping wound, the day after Corus announced it was closing Nickelodeon Canada, Paramount (the owners of Nickelodeon) announced they were pulling their content such as Nicktoons and Nickelodeon's "kidcoms" from YTV, and its Nick Jr. content from Treehouse TV (which is unaffected by the channel shutdowns). Paramount is redirecting people to susbcribing to Paramount+ to fill in those prorgamming gaps, as that content remains available to Canadian viewers on paramountplus.ca.

The closure of Family (formerly The Family Channel) is just gut-wrenching, though… with one of the original family-oriented cable networks in Canada being shut down. It was effectively our locally-owned version of The Disney Channel, from how it aired almost exclusively Disney content from its 1988 launch until around 2015. It's like seeing an older but still-beautiful building be prepared for demolition by having a load-bearing column taken out.

If this were an autopsy, the causes of death would be primarily from budget issues, with corporate disputes as a contributing factor.

Th-th-th-that's all, folks!

So Canada's animation landscape will be reduced to just:

• YTV
• Cartoon Network Canada
• Boomerang Canada
• Disney Channel Canada
• Toon-A-Vision

That lineup honestly looks a lot like how things were in 2007 or so! If you as a viewer want more, you'll need an internet connection and subscrptions to the following:

• Disney+
• Netflix
• Paramount+ (it'll always still be CBS All Access to me… such a better name than Paramount+)

Yes, I know… Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video and YouTube exist, and yeah, they're alright, but they don't offer as much in the way of quality as those three above… plus YouTube has so much brainrot for the kids that I can't fairly recommend it to those that don't know what they're looking for.

But wait… there's MORE!

As I was writing this up, the largest and oldest animation firm in Canada, Nelvana, is reported by employees to have quietly but suddenly closed down. 2025 has not been kind to childrens' animation in the Great White North! Nelvana is no slouch, either… they were the largest animation house in Canada for a good long while, until the giant mega-zord-of-animation studios known as DHX became WildBrain in 2019. At time of publication, Nelvana's website remains operational and their X.com feed remains active, complete with announcements two weeks prior to publication of their latest (and possibly last) animated series, Builder Brothers, launching.

Nelvana is storied in their production, with their biggest hits in their 54-year history being 1983's feature-length sci-fi rock-and-roll musical Rock & Rule, the animation segments to the 1993 Jim Henson Company series Dog City, the adult comedy series Clone High and too many others to list.

I honestly feel like the last parts of my childhood have died, guys…

Sources

• Fagstein: Children’s TV massacre: Family Channel, ABC Spark, Nickelodeon, Chaîne Disney, Disney XD, Disney Jr., Family Jr., WildBrainTV, Télémagino all to be shut down
• C21Media: Canada’s Corus Entertainment to shutter five kids’ channels in cost-cutting drive
• WildBrainWILDBRAIN PROVIDES UPDATE ON ITS TELEVISION BROADCAST BUSINESS
• NickALive: Nickelodeon Programming Set to Leave YTV and Treehouse in Canada in September 2025
• NickAlive: Nickelodeon Canada Shutters
• ToonHive: "Nelvana, one of Canada’s most biggest animation studios has reportedly shut down after 54 years. (1974-2025). Workers are saying the studio has closed down its doors last Friday."