Warner Bros. Discovery is shuttering its Boomerang streaming service, a home for classic animated series and movies.
The streaming service will cease operations on Sept. 30, and its subscribers and some of its content will be folded into Max, WBD’s flagship streaming platform. Boomerang’s linear channel will continue to operate on cable and satellite providers, where it’s in about 26 million homes.
Boomerang subscribers received a message from the streamer notifying them of the shutdown and that their subscriptions will be moved to Max’s ad-free tier “with no change to your subscription price until further notice.” That represents a bargain for Boomerang subscribers, who pay $6 a month for the service; Max’s ad-free plan costs $17 monthly.
Max already carries some of the same programming as Boomerang, including classic Looney Tunes shorts, several Scooby-Doo series, Tom and Jerry and The Flintstones. In its note to subscribers, Boomerang noted that “some Boomerang content may not be available” after the switch but didn’t specify what wouldn’t be making the move.
Boomerang launched as a cable channel in 2000, expanding what had been a programming block on Cartoon Network. It was conceived as a repository for classic animation from Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera — sort of a cartoon equivalent of TV Land — though it added newer series and some original programming in subsequent years. The streaming service debuted in 2017.
The shuttering of Boomerang follows that of kids streamer Noggin, which shut down earlier this year after a round of layoffs at parent company Paramount Global.