Retro

“It feels great to be in this groovy yet soothing space, surrounded by trees and tranquility”

The Globe and Mail recently ran this article by Grant Robertson on the success of the recently-launched Teletoon Retro, and in particular its unusual approach to finding advertisers and an audience for a cartoon channel. Normally, cartoon channels are aimed at children, with maybe a special late-night block for adults. In the U.S., both Cartoon Network and its spinoff Boomerang started with a mostly kid-oriented approach and  aimed still younger as time went on. Teletoon Retro is a cartoon nostalgia channel aimed to a large extent at adults who grew up watching cartoons; it was launched, the article explained, when Teletoon execs noticed that Scooby-Doo reruns were getting a lot of adult viewers on their main channel. The advertising on the network is mostly targeted to grown-ups — I see that damned Jennifer Love Hewitt acne-cream commercial every time I watch Porky Pig or Merrie Melodies — and the article explains that future acquisitions for the network will be based in part on requests they’re getting from adults. The Smurfs is, of course, their number-one most-requested show.