Boomerang (US) News & Discussion II: Rebrand

[Goldstar!]

Boomerang is no different than the other digital extra channels like Nicktoons and Disney XD; the big networks keep them around for the ad revenue and little else. Streaming has made them irrelevant.

Boomerang is also available on streaming. My guess is that in due time, Warner Brothers Discovery will absorb Boomerang into a window on Max.

 

[Micahel Cataldo]

^What do you mean?

 

[Goldstar!]

^What do you mean?

I mean that Boomerang US has benn running on a treadmill for years now. The channel has been in decline long before Me TV Toons was announced. Don't try to scapegoat Me TV Toons as the reason for Boomerang's decline because Boom has been on life support for a long time.

Personally, I think that Boomerang should just go back to being a program block on Cartoon Network. It never needed to be it's own separate channel. The only reason Boom was spun off in the first place was so that there would be more room on the CN schedule for new shows like the Cartoon-Cartoons.

 

[Silverstar]

Boomerang is a digital bonus tier sister channel that's only in a select number of homes. WB has never made any real money off of it beyond subscription fees, as such they've never poured their all into it. Several of the international Boomerang channels are bigger and receive more love from their parent companies since most international Boomerangs are essentially those countries' Cartoon Networks, with ads and premieres; Boomerang US was never huge nor was it ever meant to be; it's CN's recycle bin, period.

MeTV Toons is clearly a BFD for WBD; with so many cartoons from so many different studios it's obviously a very ambitious undertaking, plus it's free; what's the point in putting a bunch of classic cartoons on an upper tier subscription channel when you can get all those same shows plus tons more on a free OTA channel? I'm not saying Boomerang is going to be shut down (WBD has plenty of repeat/redundant channels that are kept around mainly for ad revenue) but with the advent of MeTV Toons, Boom serves less of purpose than it did already.

 

[Jeff Harris]

An old man chiming in here for a spell.

Boomerang is on borrowed time, but it's not because of MeTV Toons.

MeTV Toons is a broadcast network mostly owned and operated by Weigel Broadcasting while BOOM is a cable channel outright owned by Warner Bros Discovery. Blaming the former for what happens to the latter is like blaming CW for the woes of Paramount Network. It doesn't make any sense.

If anything, Boomerang has been on borrowed time for over a decade. The channel has largely been on auto-run for over 10 years and barely changed its continuity package that was introduced in 2014. The lineup barely budged and more attention was given to the Boomerang app and SVOD service than the channel itself.

Comcast/Xfinity, the largest cable operator in the country, doesn't carry Boomerang at all, save the few markets where Comcast purchased operators that had a preexisting contract to air it. The HD feed of the channel is barely covered by most cable operators (the SD feed remains prominent). Save a few bursts of life over the past year and a half, Boomerang has been a zombie channel for over a decade.

It's not the fault of MeTV Toons. It's not the fault of AT&T or your favorite boogieman David Zaslav. Boomerang is a victim of a changing media climate and a company that never knew what to do with the channel and abandoned its original mission a LONG time ago.

 

[Otakuninja2006]

Comcast/Xfinity, the largest cable operator in the country, doesn't carry Boomerang at all, save the few markets where Comcast purchased operators that had a preexisting contract to air it. The HD feed of the channel is barely covered by most cable operators (the SD feed remains prominent). Save a few bursts of life over the past year and a half, Boomerang has been a zombie channel for over a decade.

Right. Now, looking back on channel growing up, I feel the nnetwork was kinda always on autopilot...

 

[Silverstar]

Not to pile on, but it's always baffled me how so many people want/wanted to praise Boomerang as this great haven for classic cartoons when the main reason WB launched Boom (the channel) in the first place was to get the older shows off the main network in order to make more room for the newer stuff like Toonami and especially the Cartoon Cartoons, as exemplified by the following promos:



Also, IIRC around 2005 or 2006 WB was considering transforming Boomerang into a Tickle U channel when they were trying to compete with Nick Jr and Disney Junior head-on (Tickle U's stint on CN was supposedly a test run to see if audiences would take to a Tickle U channel), so as cherished as Boomerang is or was with some folks, the fact remains that Boom's main purpose was and is to be CN's junk drawer.

Me TV Toons hasn't even launched yet and it already seems like more time and care has been put into it.

 

[PinkieLopBun]

Not to pile on, but it's always baffled me how so many people want/wanted to praise Boomerang as this great haven for classic cartoons when the main reason WB launched Boom (the channel) in the first place was to get the older shows off the main network in order to make more room for the newer stuff like Toonami and especially the Cartoon Cartoons, as exemplified by the following promos:

Age might be a factor. I was too young to remember when CN's lineup was filled with classics. Even after I found out they were once a bigger part of the lineup, I still saw Boomerang as a place you could go for classics and not as a dumping ground. It might have been different if I actually saw CN remove them from their schedule.

 

[Kooplecrap Me]

Not to pile on, but it's always baffled me how so many people want/wanted to praise Boomerang as this great haven for classic cartoons when the main reason WB launched Boom (the channel) in the first place was to get the older shows off the main network in order to make more room for the newer stuff like Toonami and especially the Cartoon Cartoons, as exemplified by the following promos:



Also, IIRC around 2005 or 2006 WB was considering transforming Boomerang into a Tickle U channel when they were trying to compete with Nick Jr and Disney Junior head-on (Tickle U's stint on CN was supposedly a test run to see if audiences would take to a Tickle U channel), so as cherished as Boomerang is or was with some folks, the fact remains that Boom's main purpose was and is to be CN's junk drawer.

Me TV Toons hasn't even launched yet and it already seems like more time and care has been put into it.

Thr Tickle U channel definitely wouldn't had lasted and I just know it wouldn't

 

[Silverstar]

I don't want to veer off-topic, but American CN/Boom audiences have never taken to kiddie shows on the channel; from CN's genesis, the channel has always attracted an older fan base. Cartoonito has come the closest, and we all see how the US regime is treating it. Meanwhile like Boomerang, Cartoonito is more or less a fixture internationally.

 

[wiley207]

Comcast/Xfinity, the largest cable operator in the country, doesn't carry Boomerang at all, save the few markets where Comcast purchased operators that had a preexisting contract to air it. The HD feed of the channel is barely covered by most cable operators (the SD feed remains prominent). Save a few bursts of life over the past year and a half, Boomerang has been a zombie channel for over a decade.

And then when Cartoon Network did nothing to promote "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" except have a weekend-long marathon on Boomerang, that didn't help the movie AT ALL, since few people had Boomerang then. Then when they finally cancelled the Looney Tunes in October 2004, since Boomerang was largely inaccessible to a good chunk of the American population, it was like Looney Tunes were nowhere on TV for the first time in nearly half a century (only they got removed from Boomerang in early 2006, after that exclusive contract Turner got in 2000 expired).

 

[JMTV]

And then when Cartoon Network did nothing to promote "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" except have a weekend-long marathon on Boomerang, that didn't help the movie AT ALL, since few people had Boomerang then. Then when they finally cancelled the Looney Tunes in October 2004, since Boomerang was largely inaccessible to a good chunk of the American population, it was like Looney Tunes were nowhere on TV for the first time in nearly half a century (only they got removed from Boomerang in early 2006, after that exclusive contract Turner got in 2000 expired).

Yeah, that was during the time in 2004 when Cartoon Network in the CN City era decided to focus more on the kids 6-11 demographic rather than a general audience. Cartoon Network wanted more original programming and acquisitions to complete against Nick and Disney. Hence why CN phased out Looney Tunes and Hanna Barbara entirely in favor of more kids shows. Unless you're Tom and Jerry and Scooby Doo, CN treat them as unnecessary excess.

So, it's kinda not surprising that Turner did Looney Tunes dirty after Back in Action flopped, but still sucks that Looney Tunes had became a dead franchise at the time.

 

[Daffyrocks]

smh, Cartoon Network in Europe always seems that it's not catering a general audience anymore

 

[SpongieLoud]

Also, IIRC around 2005 or 2006 WB was considering transforming Boomerang into a Tickle U channel when they were trying to compete with Nick Jr and Disney Junior head-on (Tickle U's stint on CN was supposedly a test run to see if audiences would take to a Tickle U channel), so as cherished as Boomerang is or was with some folks, the fact remains that Boom's main purpose was and is to be CN's junk drawer.

Do you know the source or where you got this was information. I’ve been trying to search through different sites online to see where I could find it. I don’t know if this was true or not. Some people on Twitter didn’t think it was real.

 

[PinkieLopBun]

Do you know the source or where you got this was information. I’ve been trying to search through different sites online to see where I could find it. I don’t know if this was true or not. Some people on Twitter didn’t think it was real.

I found one:

Toon Zone Forum - Cartoon Network To Launch Preschool Bloc

The official discussion forums for ToonZone.net. Talk about animation, comics, video games, and more.

web.archive.org

 

[SpongieLoud]

I found one:

Toon Zone Forum - Cartoon Network To Launch Preschool Bloc

The official discussion forums for ToonZone.net. Talk about animation, comics, video games, and more.

web.archive.org

Thank you!

 

[wiley207]

I remember during the Thanksgiving weekend of 2005, Boomerang showed the Tickle-U block, likely as a testing ground for that, and also because of Cartoon Network having their "Turkey Days" marathons pre-empting the block. Of course, Tickle-U was their shortest-lived preschool block attempt, even more so than Cartoonito or when they had "Small World" and "Big Bag" (their first live-action original series) in 1996-98 (and even those remained in reruns until after 2000!)

 

[Daffyrocks]

I found one:

Toon Zone Forum - Cartoon Network To Launch Preschool Bloc

The official discussion forums for ToonZone.net. Talk about animation, comics, video games, and more.

web.archive.org

I think he meant, a source of information about Boomerang supposedly turning into a Tickle U-ish program. Specifically.

Not about the original Tickle U block from CN USA

 

[Jeff Harris]

I think he meant, a source of information about Boomerang supposedly turning into a Tickle U-ish program. Specifically.

Not about the original Tickle U block from CN USA

Per the quoted article:

If the new bloc is successful, the newspaper reports, Cartoon Network is prepared to convert its Boomerang channel into a preschooler channel.

And here's the reaction/talkback to the article:

Cross-posting: Boomerang's days numbered?

As posted on the CN forum: Cartoon Network will launch a weekday morning bloc of preschooler-oriented shows next spring, today's print edition of The Wall Street Journal reports, with Warner Bros. set to produce most of the new programming. It is likely that the new shows will air without...

animesuperhero.com

 

[Daffyrocks]

Per the quoted article:

And here's the reaction/talkback to the article:

Cross-posting: Boomerang's days numbered?

As posted on the CN forum: Cartoon Network will launch a weekday morning bloc of preschooler-oriented shows next spring, today's print edition of The Wall Street Journal reports, with Warner Bros. set to produce most of the new programming. It is likely that the new shows will air without...

animesuperhero.com

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