Family Channel (Canada)

Family Channel (commonly or simply known as Family) was a Canadian English-language specialty channel. Owned by WildBrain, it primarily broadcast children's television series, teen dramas, films, and general entertainment programming targeting a family audience. Its headquarters were located at Brookfield Place in the Financial District of Toronto.

The channel launched on September 1, 1988, as a premium television service, operating as a joint venture between Allarcom and First Choice Communications—the parent companies of fellow premium services Superchannel and First Choice. After subsequent acquisitions, by 1999 the network had become a joint venture of Corus Entertainment and Astral Media. In 2001, Corus traded its stake in Family to Astral for its stake in The Comedy Network, giving it full ownership. In 2013, Astral was in turn acquired by Bell Media, which would divest Family and its related properties to DHX Media (now WildBrain).

From its launch until 2015, Family maintained an output agreement with the American cable network Disney Channel, making it the Canadian broadcaster of its original series, made-for-TV movies, and specials. As part of this agreement, Astral would also launch Canadian versions of Disney Channel's sister networks Disney Junior and Disney XD. After the DHX acquisition, the license agreement ended in 2015; Disney then entered into a new licensing agreement with Corus, which launched new Canadian versions of Disney Channel, Disney XD and Disney Junior. DHX rebranded its Disney-branded channels under the Family brand, and would establish new output agreements with companies such as AwesomenessTV, DreamWorks Animation and Mattel to supplant the Disney agreement, and increase its focus on programming targeting families and older teenage audiences.

Family was originally licensed as a premium specialty service, which necessitated that it operate under a commercial-free format, but allowed it to operate multiplex feeds (particularly the aforementioned Disney Junior, now Family Jr.). Nevertheless, television providers typically distributed Family as a conventional specialty channel. In 2016, Family was relieved of this mandate after the CRTC transitioned all premium specialty services to the standardized discretionary service license.

In August 2025, WildBrain announced that it would close all of its specialty channels due to loss of carriage agreements; the network closed on October 23, 2025.