Important eventsBack
Cartoon Network begins broadcasting1.10.1992
Cartoon Network (CN) is an American basic cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner. The channel airs mainly animated programming, ranging from action to animated comedy, along with some live-action content.
It is primarily aimed at children and teenagers between the ages of 7–15, and also targets older teens and adults with mature content during its late night daypart Adult Swim, which is treated as a separate entity for promotional purposes and as a separate channel by Nielsen for ratings purposes. A Spanish language audio track for select programs is accessible via SAP; some cable and satellite companies offer the Spanish feed as a separate channel.
As of August 2013, approximately 98,671,000 American households (86.4% of households with television) receive the Cartoon Network.Launch
On February 18, 1992, Turner Broadcasting System announced plans to launch the Cartoon Network as an outlet for Turner's considerable library of animation. The channel's launch occurred on October 1, 1992, and was hosted by the MGM cartoon character Droopy in a special event called Droopy's Guide to the Cartoon Network, during which the first cartoon on the network, Rhapsody Rabbit, was shown. Initial programming on the channel consisted exclusively of reruns of classic Warner Bros. cartoons (the pre-1950 Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies), the 1933–1957 Popeye cartoons, MGM cartoons, and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. At first, cable providers in New York City, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., and Detroit carried the channel. By the time the network launched, Cartoon Network had an 8,500-hour cartoon library. From its launch until 1995, the network's announcers said the network's name with the word "The" added before "Cartoon Network", thus calling the network "The Cartoon Network". By the time that the network debuted, Cartoon Network also operated a programming block (containing its cartoons) that aired on TNT, entitled "Cartoon Network on TNT".
Cartoon Network was not the first cable channel to have relied on cartoons to attract an audience. Nickelodeon had paved the way in the 1980s. On August 11, 1991, Nickelodeon had launched three "high-profile" animated series: Doug, The Ren & Stimpy Show and Rugrats, further signifying the importance of cartoons in its programming. The Disney Channel and The Family Channel had also included animated shows as part of their programming schedules, as did USA Network, whose Cartoon Express was widely popular. In each of these cases, until October 1, 1992, cartoons were only broadcast during the morning or the early afternoon. Prime time and late night hours were reserved for live-action programs, following the assumption that television animation could only attract child audiences, while Cartoon Network was a 24-hour single-genre channel with animation as its main theme. Turner Broadcasting System had defied conventional wisdom before by launching CNN, a channel providing 24-hour news coverage. The concept was previously thought unlikely to attract a sufficient audience to be particularly profitable, however the CNN experiment had been successful and Turner hoped that Cartoon Network would also find success.
Initially, the channel would broadcast cartoons 24 hours a day. Most of the short cartoons were aired in half-hour or hour-long packages, usually separated by character or studio – Down Wit' Droopy D aired old Droopy Dog shorts, The Tom and Jerry Show presented the classic cat-and-mouse team, and Bugs and Daffy Tonight provided classic Looney Tunes shorts. Late Night Black and White showed early black-and-white cartoons (mostly from the Fleischer Studios and Walter Lantz cartoons from 1930s), and ToonHeads would show three shorts with a similar theme and provide trivia about the cartoons. There was also an afternoon cartoon block called High Noon Toons, which was hosted by cowboy hand puppets (an example of the simplicity and imagination the network had in its early years). The majority of the classic animation that was shown on Cartoon Network no longer airs on a regular basis, with the exception of Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes.
A challenge for Cartoon Network was to overcome its low penetration of existing cable systems. When launched on October 1, 1992, the channel was only carried by 233 cable systems. However, it benefited from package deals. New subscribers to sister channels TNT and TBS could also get access to Cartoon Network through such deals. The high ratings of Cartoon Network over the following couple of years led to more cable systems including it. By the end of 1994, Cartoon Network had become "the fifth most popular cable channel in the United States".
