WildBrain is planning to shut down its four channels after failing to renew carriage deals with major Canadian media companies Rogers and Bell. 

Without these critical agreements in place, Family Channel (family), Family Jr. (preschool), WildBrainTV (six to 15) and Télémagino (French-language kids) are “no longer commercially viable,” the company said in a statement released today. 

WildBrain doesn’t have a precise date set for the closures yet, but it will happen after Rogers removes them in the coming months, according to a company spokesperson.  

This announcement comes in the wake of both Rogers and Bell deciding to remove the channels from their services, and WildBrain has also spent months trying to sell this part of its business. 

Back in December, the company had a deal agreed to sell a majority stake in its channels business to Canadian animation studio IoM Media Ventures for roughly US$28 million (CAD$40 million). But now that the value of the channels is drastically diminished by the lack of carriage contracts, this sale has fallen through. 

Shedding the channels will result in a simplification of the company’s shareholder structure. There’s currently a limit on non-Canadian ownership because foreign entities are not permitted to own a controlling stake in Canadian broadcast channels under the country’s Broadcasting Act. Without the channels business at play, WildBrain will no longer be subject to these controls, and all investors will have the same voting weight, says the same spokesperson. 

“For nearly four decades, Family Channel has been a trusted destination for Canadian kids and families,” said Josh Scherba, WildBrain’s president and CEO, in a release. “We’re incredibly proud of the legacy we’ve built—thanks to our loyal viewers, dedicated television employees and the many talented Canadian producers we’ve partnered with.” 

Family Channel commissioned and acquired animated and live-action programming, and was frequently the Canadian home for international series. In the last two years, it co-commissed a Canadian/Australian/Irish co-pro called Badjelly, picked up Sinking Ship/Leif Films/Saga Films’ Beyond Black Beauty and ordered I Woke Up A Vampire, produced in association with Netflix. 

WildBrain declined to comment on what would happen to current content licenses affected by the shutdown, but Scherba doesn’t expect there to be a big impact on the company’s bottom line. “While it is unfortunate that the channels will be discontinued, the impact on our broader business is minimal and does not affect our go-forward strategy.” 

The company’s other business pillars are content creation, audience engagement and global licensing. And in its Q3 2025 financial report (the most recent one available), revenue was posted at US$128.4 million, up 42% year over year. 

Pictured is WildBrain series Ruby & the Well from Shaftesbury, which premiered on Family Channel in 2022.