With streaming video companies looking for ways to stem the slowdown in subscriber growth, a panel of experts at the Next TV Summit said using an old cable tenet — bundling — could help attract more price-conscious consumers into the fold. 

At the “Recession Realities” panel at the gathering Tuesday, part of NYC TV Week, Weather Group senior VP and chief marketing officer Fred Bucher said the same economic forces and price sensitivity that killed the cable bundle are apparently making a comeback with streaming. Already streamers like Disney, with its Hulu, ESPN Plus and Disney Plus bundle, and others are repackaging services to make them more attractive to consumers. 

“Economic forces and price sensitivity is what killed the cable bundle, and that’s continuing,” Bucher said, adding that price sensitivity and churn are driving the creation of different tiers of pricing and services like ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) and free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) services.

Weather Group launched its own streaming service — Local Now — to address cord-cutters who missed local news and entertainment content.

“A lot of the answers for the future are in the past,” Bucher said, adding that what built the cable business — aggregation, better pricing and bundling — will likely be cornerstones of SVOD and AVOD models in a few years. 

Panel moderator Jon Geigengack, founder and principal of Hub Entertainment Research, said that as the bundle grows, consumers will crave a way to make finding content easier, and aggregation is one way to satisfy that need. 

DirecTV Advertising Group VP, client success, programmatic and ad operations Rose McGovern agreed, adding that aggregation is what DirecTV does best. Citing recent Nielsen research, she said about 64% of customers wish to have a bundle that includes as much or as little content as they want. 

That includes live and local programming as well, McGovern added, with about 67% of people nationally watching live content every day. 

As content streaming choices grow, Bucher said it is imperative that content companies get the word out, and that means marketing becomes more important than ever. 

“The biggest threat is underinvestment in marketing,” Bucher said. “It starts with great content, great product experience, and great marketing. If you don’t have those three things, you’re not going to win.” 

Bucher added that critical to the marketing effort is that streamers really know their consumers. 

“You have to understand who your consumers are, understand who your hard core users are too  and make them happy,” Bucher said.

And once you’ve hooked a viewer, the trick is keeping them. At AMC Networks, executive VP of performance marketing Sylvia George said engagement is a critical part of the equation. 

“What is so critical is your audience,” George said. “The relationship with the audience, super-serving the audience, making sure that you’re segmenting your audience based on data, based on what is your audience engaging with once they come in — not just the first thing they watch, what’s the second and third thing they watch. Getting people engaged within a specific time period is critical to ensuring retention. If you don’t get your subscriber engaged within a few weeks, you’re at risk of losing them. You can’t get complacent.”

The panel also was encouraged by Netflix’s plan to launch an ad-supported version of the service soon. The company has already partnered with Microsoft to provide the tech infrastructure for the AVOD service. 

“In some ways, they could help re-energize the advertising business,” Bucher said, adding that Netflix doesn’t have the “institutional inertia” of some other companies that have long been in the ad business. “It’s kind of cool to take a fresh look.”

Bucher was especially encouraged by the vast amount of data in Netflix's arsenal, adding that the ad business may never get this chance again. 

McGovern also was encouraged by the potential for more innovation that a Netflix AVOD product could bring. For example, a departure from the traditional 15-second to 30-second ad spot.

But Bucher warned that whatever comes out of the Netflix AVOD experiment will depend on outside pressures. 

“There’s a lot of stuff they could do that could be an enormous amount of fun… but what it’s going to come down to will be how much pressure they’re under to deliver a number of revenue,” Bucher said. “If there are huge revenue expectations, that’s going to diminish innovation, because they are going to default to what they know, and agencies will say, ‘Just make it easy for me.’ That, to me, will be a shame. 

“The irony is that Reed Hastings, who was so dogmatic for so long about advertising, can actually become the person to really reinvent the space,” Bucher continued. “I hope they’re given the time to do that. “ ■ 

With Netflix and Disney Plus just months away from launching ad-supported versions of their respective streaming services, Kagan, the media-research arm of S&P Global Market Intelligence, says that lower prices and more ads may just encourage current ad-free customers to switch to the more economical tiers. 

Kagan surveyed about 2,519 streaming service subscribers and found that 60% to 70% of customers of Hulu, Peacock Premium, Discovery Plus and Paramount Plus already subscribed to the ad-free tier. Only about 43% of HBO Max customers subscribe to the ad-supported tier, but that may be because it is only a few months old. HBO Max launched its ad-supported tier in June 2021.

According to Kagan, while about one-third of those ad-supported customers lived in households with less than $50,000 in annual income, 25% to 40% lived in homes where annual incomes were $100,000 or more. 

“Given the popularity of ad-supported plans, operators such as Disney and Netflix that are launching ad-supported plans may not see a mass influx of new subscribers and could instead see a sizable number of existing subs switch to ad-supported offerings,” Kagan senior research analyst Seth Shafer wrote in the report. 

Disney Plus is expected to launch its ad-supported version on December 8,  and Netflix has said it plans to do the same before the end of the year.  Netflix had its first ever quarterly streaming subscriber loss in Q1 (200,000 customers) and in Q2 lost about 1 million streaming customers. The belief is that as the number of streaming services grows, consumers are gravitating toward ad-supported tiers to keep tier monthly costs down. But in the Kagan report,  Shafer wrote that it may just come down to each service being different.

“A case could be made that Netflix and Disney Plus are simply ‘different’ when it comes to ad viewing preferences — Netflix, due to the fact that it has been an ad-free haven for its entire existence and Disney Plus, due to some parents seeking to keep children from being exposed to ads on the service,” Shafer wrote. “While those factors could slightly reduce levels of ad-supported subscribers for Netflix and Disney Plus relative to other services, survey data suggests that a sizable number of new and existing subs for both Netflix and Disney+ will opt for ad-supported tiers.” 

Kagan found that a large percentage of ad-supported users at other streaming services are also subscribers to Netflix and Disney Plus. According to the company, 82% of Hulu, 84% of HBO Max, 79% of Discovery Plus, 78% of Paramount Plus and 66% of Peacock Premium ad-supported subscribers also subscribe to Netflix. Between 42% and 64% of customers of those ad-supported services also subscribe to Disney Plus, according to Kagan.

The researcher added there was little “crossover behavior” between ad-supported and ad-free tiers, meaning that when given the choice, ad-supported customers tend to stick with that tier with other services. 

“Using Hulu and HBO Max as examples due to their larger respondent base sizes across multiple services, ad-supported viewers at those two services tended to select ad-supported tiers when they used other services,” Shafer wrote. “Ad-free viewers were also generally more likely to select ad-free tiers at other services but the tendency was less apparent when compared to ad-supported users opting for other ad-supported offerings.” ■ 

Netflix stock fell again Friday (April 22), ending the day at $215.52 (down 1.2%) and capping a three-day decline that saw the company shed 38% of its share price, more than $55 billion in market capitalization and the unofficial title of Streaming Champion of the World. Now with expectations low for Q2, the company is faced with a dilemma: what to do to regain its crown. 

The last time Netflix stock fell like a stone -- remember January 21? -- there was a quick response from hedge fund managers who saw the drop off as an opportunity to take advantage of the panic, to snap up a good stock for a bargain price and rake in the money later. Now, three months later, during Netflix’s latest share cratering, those earlier white knights have left the castle, and there doesn’t seem to be any replacements at the drawbridge, at least anytime soon.

Back in January, hedge fund Pershing Square and its chief Bill Ackman said they had bought 3.1 million shares of Netflix for about $1 billion, claiming he was “all in” on the streaming space and was ready to reap the profits once Netflix turned itself around, probably in the first quarter. At the time, Netflix predicted that it would add about 2.5 million global subscribers in Q1, substantially lower than in past Q1’s -- typically one of the strongest growth periods for the company -- but strong enough. A few days later, Netflix founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said he bought $200 million of Netflix stock personally, showing his commitment to the company and the stock. 

Also: Netflix Comeback Could Take a While 

Fast-forward to earlier this week and Ackman sold his Netflix stake for a $450 million loss on April 19, and Netflix didn’t add 2.5 million global customers, it lost 200,000 of them. Adding insult to injury, the company said it would lose another 2 million subscribers in Q2. 

In a note to shareholders on April 19, Ackman said that while he and the Pershing team believe in Netflix’s management, its “enormous operating leverage” means that any fluctuation in the company’s future subscriber growth can impact value. 

“In our original analysis, we viewed this operating leverage favorably due to our long-term growth expectations for the company,” Ackman wrote.

“While Netflix’s business is fundamentally simple to understand, in light of recent events, we have lost confidence in our ability to predict the company’s future prospects with a sufficient degree of certainty,” he continued, adding that given its management’s track record, Netflix can still be a successful company and a good investment. “That said, we believe the dispersion of outcomes has widened to a sufficiently large extent that it is challenging for the company to meet our requirements for a core holding.”

In other words, Ackman and Pershing, like just about every other fund that invested in Netflix, believed that the subscriber growth train would never stop. Only a few years ago, analysts were predicting Netflix would have 300 million global subscribers by 2023. Now, analysts like Needham & Co. 's Laura Martin are wondering if 222 million (its current global tally) is the peak.  

Despite the irrational exuberance that fueled a lot of Netflix’s unprecedented run in the past few years -- its stock price more than doubled from $302.60 on November 18, 2019 to $700.99 on November 17, 2021 -- investors had to think, at least in the very back of their minds, that it couldn’t last forever. Like the booms and busts of past stock market bubbles -- tech in the 2000s, real estate in the mid-2000s, everything in the late 1990s -- it eventually has to come to an end. In the past week, Netflix stock has fallen 38%. Shares are down 63% since the beginning of the year. The ride, it seems, is over.

Who or What is to Blame?

To some analysts, the pandemic is partly to blame -- Netflix added nearly 55 million subscribers globally between 2019 and 2021, the height of stay-at-home orders that forced people indoors and in front of their TV sets. Broadband experienced the same slowdown after a booming two years -- Comcast and Charter alone added a combined 7 million high-speed data customers between 2019 and 2020 and just 2.5 million in 2021. Netflix was different because it kept spending money on content -- $15 billion last year, by some estimates -- had some of its most-watched shows ever during the pandemic and even though the North America market was pretty saturated (about 60% of pay TV households have a Netflix subscription), they were going to make it up in spades internationally.

But COVID was a global problem, and even international customers had more streaming choices in the last couple of years -- Disney Plus, for example, has about 46 million subscribers in India alone, a market that Netflix is just-now taking seriously. In the U.S., Netflix was becoming a victim of its own success. Couple that with very aggressive competitors and international instability -- Netflix suspended its Russian operation in March after that country’s invasion of Ukraine -- and it's no wonder that Netflix has had a tough go finding new customers. 

“In hindsight, COVID pulled forward Netflix to maturity in its oldest markets (North and Latin America and Western Europe),” wrote Evercore ISI Group analyst Mark Mahaney in a note to clients, adding that Netflix has about 60% penetration of North American broadband households, 80% when password sharing is counted. “It’s not easy to raise penetration beyond that level.” 

Netflix says it is going to crack down on password sharing and will introduce an ad-supported tier, but there are questions about how soon either of those can be implemented and whether it will make much of a difference. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter, a long-time bear on Netflix stock, told CNBC in March, when talk began to circulate that Netflix, like other streamers, would consider an ad tier, that it likely wouldn’t be big enough or fast enough to make that much of a difference. He added that Hulu has an ad tier that brings in about $10 per month per subscriber in advertising revenue. 

“The question is do they make more money at $10 per month for advertising or do they make more money charging $15.49 [for service]?” Pachter told CNBC. “I think it’s a push. …Five bucks, six bucks per month plus $10 advertising, that’s a push. What’s the point?”

Needham & Co.’s Martin believes that the ad-tier will help Netflix, but advertising alone won’t solve its problems. In an April 20 research note, Martin wrote that in addition to a lower-priced ad-supported version, Netflix needs to add sports and news content, bundle the service with other products and/or purchase a large film or TV content library. 

“Every streaming competitor does one or more of these things, which puts Netflix at a structural competitive disadvantage, we believe,” Martin wrote. “Another alternative is for Netflix to acquire other companies that provide one or more of these attributes, as it has done for video games.”

Borrowing For Growth 

Pachter has been a harsh critic of Netflix's seemingly endless habit of continually increasing its content spend -- $17 billion last year, according to some estimates, compared to $4 billion for Disney Plus -- by borrowing. Increasing leverage was OK'd by Wall Street as long as the subscriber growth was strong. When it started to trail off, then investors began to worry.

Netflix still has a junk-bond rating on its debt, but it was expected to move into investment grade territory soon. Moody’s Investors Service raised Netflix’s debt rating two notches to Ba1 in April 2021, based on revenue and subscriber growth, and the belief that as that continued, Netflix would begin to report positive, sustained free cash flow soon. Having steady, sustainable free cash flow would allow Netflix to take its leverage ratio below 2.5 times, consistent with its current rating.    

Moody’s is still optimistic that Netflix will be able to pull itself out of the hole. 

“We still see the company continuing to build on its significant scale to penetrate the world's 800 million pay TV homes and the global addressable homes of over 1.5 billion (both excluding China), sustaining competitively low cost per viewing hour leadership, growing average revenue for member, and reinvesting in even more content as it benefits from this virtuous cycle,” Moody’s SVP Neil Begley wrote. 

But that confidence does not come without caveats. In his Friday note, Begley warned that the causes of the Q1 losses and the “potentially sharp” first half declines in subscribers are still there: price increases; competition; and customers that are taking a break from in-home binge-watching as COVID restrictions are lifted. Moody’s said it will continue to monitor those conditions. 

Not Such a Big Surprise 

Pachter had warned that this day would come for years. In a 2019 article by then-Bloomberg columnist Joe Nocera, the analyst remembered being asked to justify his $183 price target on Netflix shares when the stock was already trading at $368 each. He said to justify his price target, Netflix would have to show a $2 billion improvement in free cash flow and have around 300 million subscribers paying $20 per month. Pachter believed Netflix could get there in a competition-free environment, but that wasn’t the case.

“What will happen if competitors are charging $7?” Pachter asked.

Well, that day is here. Hulu raised the price of its ad-supported service to $6.99 monthly in October, Disney Plus raised its price to $7.99 per month earlier this year and Apple TV Plus and Peacock’s premium tier are still at $4.99 per month. Netflix upped the monthly charge for its standard service to $15.49 per month in January.

Back in 2016, Nocera wondered in an article he wrote for the New York Times what would happen if the Netflix hamster wheel of constantly escalating spending to fuel subscriber growth ever slowed down. In his mind, it would lead to a lower stock price, which would increase the cost of debt, forcing Netflix to increase prices or cut back on costs or both. In a New York Times article at the time, he wrote that it would turn the “virtuous circle” of increased spending fueling increased subscriber growth, into a “vicious circle.” 

For years, Netflix was the bratty younger brother in the media business, making fun of its slower, older and less stylish cousins, while spending the equivalent of dad’s money like it was going out of style. That behavior was tolerated, even encouraged by lenders and Wall Street as long as it kept up its blistering growth pace. Now that growth has appeared to stop, or at least slowed considerably, Netflix’s hijinks just aren’t so cute anymore. 

But probably more important is that despite the ups and downs of the streaming market, Netflix was always a pretty predictable company. Sure, subscriber growth would fluctuate, but in the end it would always be higher than before. Today, a hedge fund that three months ago thought it was a good move to take a $1 billion plunge in buying Netflix stock, now thinks it’s better to take a $450 million bath just to get out of the water. ■

With the ad-supported version of its HBO Max product only a few days old, HBO Max executive VP and general manager Andy Forssell told an industry audience that the product and others like it could open up a whole new market for streaming, and eventually help to push the TV universe past 100 million homes. 

WarnerMedia launched its ad-supported version of HBO Max on June 2, priced at $9.99 per month and geared toward more cost-conscious consumers.  At the Barclays virtual Future of Media conference Thursday, Forssell said that the potential for ad-supported streaming is huge.   

“You’re going to get to a larger market. The total addressable market is larger,” Forssell said. “Netflix is probably defining the ceiling on what full penetration in the U.S. market is and they’re riding that up and in some cases they are propelling that wave. I think with ad supported, you add 20% to that."

Currently there are about 85 million pay TV customers in the U.S., but Forssell predicted ad-supported streaming could help push that total higher. 

“We should get back to [the] 100 million-plus homes that we served during the heyday of cable,” he continued. “I think SVOD and some ad-supported SVOD versions should get back to that.”

HBO Max said that it will keep ad loads low on the service -- a maximum of 4 minutes per hour -- and Forssell said that won’t change. 

“Our hypothesis there is message recall, brand recall will be higher the fewer ads you have,” Forssell said. “They’ll be worth more and we'll get to monetize that, ad partners will agree that they are worth more. That’s the experiment we have to prove out in the next year and make it reality and not flip back into what many providers have done in maybe starting with a similar thesis, but saying let’s add another ad to this break because that's the easiest way to increase revenue.”  

Forssell also talked about sports rights, adding that the old way of selling sports rights -- offering what he called “odd little slices” of rights to cable networks -- probably won’t work in a streaming world. 

“I don’t think that [sports] rights landscape is going to be nearly as successful in SVOD,” he said. 

He pointed to Turner Networks’ agreement with the National Hockey League, which also has an HBO Max component.

“Hockey primarily was a vote of confidence and investment in the Turner Networks,” Forssell said. “To add a major sport there was a statement we wanted to make. Will we experiment with that on HBO Max? Sure.” 

But he added that sports brings new challenges to streaming, especially on how they are presented. Providers should also be thinking about things like shoulder programming around games, and whether talent connected with that content should be different in the digital and linear worlds. 

For news operations like CNN, he said the linear relationship will continue as the company looks for streaming complements. 

CNN is said to be readying a streaming service called CNN Plus, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. 

“We will look at what you can do direct-to-consumer,” Forssell said. “We don’t think it’s just repurposing all of that and putting it online in some IP directed format. We think it’s going to change, some of the content needs to change. There is a lot of work going on as to what that will look like.”

Still, Forssell said he was optimistic about the fit between streaming news and entertainment. “They [have] different needs, but I’m optimistic," he said. “Sports, I’m not pessimistic, but it’s going to take some experimentation on what works in SVOD, because what works in cable doesn’t necessarily translate.” 

The discounted, partially ad-supported version of HBO Max will be priced at $9.99 a month and debut in June, according to CNBC, which cited unnamed sources at parent conglomerate WarnerMedia. 

The version, which will include commercials, will be discounted by $5 over the ad-free, $14.99 version of the service. 

WarnerMedia has yet to confirm this go-to-market strategy. 

Last week, the conglomerate said that it added 2.7 million subscribers to its overall U.S. HBO subscriber ranks, a grouping which now totals 44.2 million—and which includes a large swath of customers who receive the programming service through linear pay TV platforms. 

WarnerMedia said in December that 17.1 million of its HBO subscribers get the service through the HBO Max app. But the conglomerate didn’t release an updated OTT number during the Q1 earnings report last week for parent company AT&T. 

During the associated earnings call, AT&T CEO John Stankey revealed that average revenue per user for all HBO customers is $11.72, a figure he called “impressive.

“Whether a customer chooses to buy the ad-supported product or buy the straight subscription product, it’s accretive in the same ways to our business,” Stankey said.

Comcast said Tuesday that it has purchased ad-supported streaming service Xumo. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Xumo, based in Irvine, California, offers free, live and on-demand streaming entertainment, news, sports and features over 190 different genre-grouped channels. Its partners include Roku and smart television brands like Panasonic, LG, Vizio, Samsung and Hisense. Comcast said the company will continue to operate as an independent business inside Comcast Cable.

The deal comes as Comcast is gearing up to launch its Peacock streaming service. That product, which will be free to Xfinity customers, will debut on April 15.

Comcast already has a relationship with Xumo -- it agreed last summer to integrate the Xumo app into its Xfinity set-top boxes. 

“The talented team at Xumo has created a successful, growing, and best-in-class set of streaming capabilities,” Comcast said in a statement. “We are excited for this team to join Comcast and look forward to supporting them as they continue to innovate and develop their offerings.”

RELATED:Looking for Shows People 'Love': A Q&A With Crackle's John Orlando

Crackle is hoping to break into the big leagues of streaming services with the help of new original series, including the Nov. 19 debut of glitzy drama The Art of More, set in the fictitious realm of New York City art-auction houses and featuring star turns by Dennis Quaid, Cary Elwes and Kate Bosworth.

Over the past five years, the unit of Sony Pictures Television has evolved from offering short-form content, then adding Web series, to now creating long-form TV and films. While The Art of More is the free, ad-supported platform’s first original scripted series, in early October Crackle reached another milestone with the launch of stopmotion animated series SuperMansion, voiced by Emmy Award winner Bryan Cranston.

With 18 million monthly users in the U.S. and availability via 30 different applications for connected TVs, smartphones, tablets and the Web, Crackle has taken pains to ensure its content is pervasive and accessible. To that end, its content also comes in three languages and is available in 21 countries.

‘OTT’ IS TEMPORARY

As executive vice president of digital networks at Sony Pictures Television and general manager of Crackle, Eric Berger has helped develop the division into Sony’s always-on global streaming network. He is responsible for the development, production and distribution of original features and series created for Crackle. He also oversees all programming, marketing, distribution, product, video operations and engineering, as well as ad sales for Crackle and PlayStation Vue.

While it’s tempting to call Crackle another over-the-top provider, Berger eschews the term, calling it “temporary.”

“We view ourselves much more akin to a TV network,” he said. “We’re in the best of both worlds between TV and streaming, and we’re programming with original content. We’ve gone from shortform websites to half-hours, to features and one-hour dramas. We’re growing and evolving.”

Berger said Crackle has aimed for a seamless streaming experience that mirrors programmed linear-TV viewing. When a viewer launches the Crackle app, a scheduled program begins to play, and consumers can browse for something else in the channel guide while continuing to watch the show that’s currently on.

While viewers can always watch something on-demand, Crackle also offers multiple scheduled channels of themed content that vary by daypart.

Berger’s team analyzed consumer behavior with OTT and found that the connected TV category was the most desirable for streaming video into the home.

There were also differences in behavior among users of Roku boxes, Apple TV boxes and game consoles vs. linear TV. The idea of coming home and watching whatever’s on TV is a thing of the past — connected-TV users were simply watching whatever was on, the team found.

This fall, Crackle rolled out the always- on experience on a number of connected devices, including Roku, PlayStation, Xbox, Amazon Fire TV and Android TV.

Consumers started to take notice of Crackle in a big way in 2013 when Comedians in Cars Drinking Coffee, the unscripted interview series produced by and starring Jerry Seinfeld, launched. That was Crackle’s first big crossover show, and it returns in January for a seventh season.

Dan Patrick’s Sports Jeopardy!, a weekly show produced in front of a live studio audience, takes Crackle even further into the pop-culture zeitgeist.

Berger made note of another differentiator for Crackle: Its shows go straight to series; there are no pilots. In addition, Crackle integrates advertisers early on in the process and because it’s backed by Sony, the shows are distributed globally. And by being both the studio and the network, Crackle has an end-to-end process that it sees all the way through from conception with the talent, through distribution. Plus it controls the ad sales.

‘TV AND NOTHING SHORT OF THAT’

Berger calls The Art of More and SuperMansion “TV and nothing short of that.”

“It’s the next evolution for us as we come up from movies and half-hours,” he said. “We want to position Crackle as the best of both worlds — we’re on-demand and we’re a linear network.”

Crackle’s predominantly 18-to-34- year-old male demographic is also evolving and the network is looking more at the psychographics of its streaming audience. “We’re focused on ‘rechargers,’ people who are in the prime of their professional lives, building careers, working hard and playing hard. They stream to relax, they over-index on game-console usage, and they want things that are hassle-free and accessible.”

Bridging the gap between linear TV and on-demand is what Crackle’s aiming for and it’s a sweet spot for Berger.

“I really enjoy the intersection of the art and the technology,” he said. “I like taking the data and learnings about the experiences consumers like to have and translating them into new experiences.”

“We’re introducing audiences to new worlds they haven’t seen before and aligning them thematically with other content that resonates and does well,” Berger added. “By using the data and seeing what works and doesn’t work, we can extrapolate.

“You’re going to see more and more original programming on Crackle,” he added.

Turner Broadcasting System is repositioning its Boomerang service as an all animation, youth-targeted network that will feature commercials in the U.S. for the first time, beginning next year. The gambit places Boomerang in the hunt for eyeballs for kids and their parents, as well as the marketing opportunities tied to co-viewing audiences. 

While Boomerang, which has served as vintage complement to Turner Broadcasting's flagship kids brand, Cartoon Network, will continue to draw from a robust library of Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera, Cartoon Network and MGM theatrical shorts, series and specials, featuring such classics as Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo and The Powerpuff Girls, the network will integrate a slate of newly acquired contemporary series from around the globe.

Boomerang will also introduce a refreshed on-air environment and for the first time offer exclusive original content on the network across its 13 international feeds. All told, Boomerang counts some 250 million global subscribers, including 45.5 million in the U.S., where it launched in 2000.

The first rollout of the refreshed Boomerang occurred in Latin America on Sept. 29, and will continue Down Under in Australia on Nov. 3. The relaunch in the additional territories, including the States, will transpire in 2015.  Domestically, the network became rated by Nielsen in September. The move to sell ads on Boomerang was announced in February.

With the reset, Boomerang will compete for ad sales and sponsorship opportunities with Cartoon, Viacom's Nickelodeon suite of services, as well as Disney Channel and Disney XD.

"The re-launch of Boomerang as a second flagship channel is a testament to its global appeal,” Gerhard Zeiler, president of Turner Broadcasting System, International, said in a release.  “We are extremely proud to see this channel move into its next incarnation – with a look and feel that conveys its quality and contemporary position. This represents a further step in our strategy to build on the success of our international kid’s network.”

Christina Miller, who in July became president and general manager, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim and Boomerang (U.S.), said in the release: “Boomerang has always been a timeless favorite with multi-generational appeal. We see this as a unique opportunity to not only redefine the family co-viewing experience, but to grow and leverage our overall global kids portfolio and position it across all platforms in conjunction with Cartoon Network."

Beyond its linear presence in more than 250 million homes, Boomerang also will be supported with refreshed digital and mobile platforms, including a newly refaced website that features exclusive activities, games and content to provide a full immersion experience for all visitors. Younger fans will be able to enjoy age-appropriate free games showcasing their favorite characters, while older users can learn more about their favorite characters and series.