Cartoon Network UK 25th Anniversary: Previous Birthday Celebrations
Today (17th September) is Cartoon Network UK’s (originally launched as Cartoon Network Europe) 25th Birthday, so here’s a brief overview of the channel’s previous birthday milestones.
Cartoon Network UK’s 10th Birthday
In 2003, Cartoon Network UK celebrated its 10th birthday, during this era, Cartoon Network Europe co-production – The Cramp Twins was airing on the channel (hence the logo featuring Wayne Cramp swapping the letter around on the logo). During this time, Cartoon Network invested a yearly average of $100 million in animated productions around the world, which mostly included the United States and Europe. At this point in its history, the channel was UK’s number one commercial channel for children aged between 4 to 9 years old. For the 10th Anniversary, the channel had a special competition, also during that September, Codename: Kids Next Door premiered.
http://www.contactmusic.com/pages/cartoonnetworkx17x09x03
Cartoon Network UK’s 18th Birthday
A few days before Cartoon Network UK’s 18th Birthday in 2011 (14th September) – a HD version of the channel – Cartoon Network HD launched, the night schedule also featured classic Cartoon Cartoons from the late 1990’s to early 2000’s. During this era, The Amazing World of Gumball was a brand new show and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien was airing, this was also during Regular Show’s and Adventure Time’s early days.
https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/cartoon-network-hd-launch-september/1084763
Cartoon Network UK’s 20th Birthday
In 2013, Cartoon Network UK celebrated its 20th Birthday, on the Cartoon Network UK website there were puzzles and activities and an animated DOG (digital originated graphic) on the channel.
https://web.archive.org/web/20130920072546/http://www.cartoonnetwork.co.uk:80/blogs
My Opinion on Cartoon Network UK’s 25th Birthday
I think its great that CN UK has celebrated its 25th Birthday with a party and will have a special screening at BAFTA in London in a less than a couple of weeks time plus some clips of CN classics on YouTube, but I’m disappointed that there’s no celebrations on the actual channel, this is nowhere near compared to the amazing effort Cartoon Network Latin America has done for their 25th Birthday a few months ago and at least CN USA aired a special ident for their 25th Birthday last October, which CN UK could of aired. I’m aware that unlike Latin America, the European market is a lot more fragmented, and different versions of CN will have their birthdays at different times, but this could of been more of an European effort and not just a UK one, as most of Europe had the original pan-European version since the very beginning. Nickelodeon UK also celebrated their 25th birthday this month and had no celebrations on the channel.
In Latin America particularly, the channel has very high viewership, but meanwhile in Britain there’s a lot more competition in the children’s broadcasting sector than there used to be (especially FTA channels such as CBBC, CITV and POP) and the amount of children’s channels is disproportionately high compared to other developed nations, but in pay-TV terms and according to BARB statistics, CN UK still holds up against Nickelodeon and Disney Channel.
https://www.cartoonnetwork.co.uk
More info on Cartoon Network UK’s 25th Anniversary celebrations on the link below:
https://www.regularcapital.com/tag/cartoon-network-uk-25th-anniversary/
