CG66 Studios

CG66 Studios was an American distributor of shows and movies, founded in February 2014.

In 2019, it was reported that the studio was trying to spin-off its Aura-related assets into a legally separate company, due to the studio having been reported to be heading towards bankruptcy.

In May 2019, it was announced that following the spin-off of Aura properties and a potential sale (the spun-off company being called Aura), the company would cease operating under "CG66 Studios".

On September 20th, 2020, CG66 Studios, after over a year of dormancy following the spin-off of all Aura assets, announced that it had filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy and would sell off all its remaining assets to other companies by the end of the year.

History
The company was founded in February 2014.

TBA.

Recent developments (2017 - present)
In August 2017, BronzePlanet and Mystical Entertainment entered talks with the company to buy NickFamily Anime and the UK feeds of NickFamily Retro and NickFamily Extreme. Subsequently, Rogers Media entered talks with Corus Entertainment to acquire the license for the Canadian NickFamily Extreme, for a combined $1.46 billion USD.

On August 22nd, 2017, while the sale of the remaining channels involved was still pending at the time, NickFamily Anime became the first channel involved in the deal to be sold. The American broadcast rights to Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt were also sold to BronzePlanet at the same time.

On October 8th, 2017, The CW TOO was sold to BronzePlanet and Mystical Entertainment. CG66 Studios cited a number of reasons for this, including the channel's initial affiliation deal expiring in October 2017 and the channel not securing an extension of their contract, as well as not having first-run programming in its schedule outside CW network hours.

On November 5th, 2017, three Canadian channels- NickFamily Extreme, Boomerang, and Nicktoons Network- were sold to Rogers Media.

In November 2017, Aura replaced Vortexx Network on most cable providers; AT&T U-verse continued to carry Vortexx Network until December 31st, 2017, when AuraToons launched. On November 27th, 2017, Axiom Entertainment announced that they intended on buying up the channel.

In January 2018, it was announced that CBS Studios' license agreement with CBS was set to expire on January 31st, 2018; CG66 Studios has since announced that it would make the studio a subsidiary of NickFamily Studios, move the television studios of Aura into its facility and rename the studio into Aura Television Productions. CBS Studios' operations were moved to a separate facility, at which point the studio was renamed Aura Films.

Since February 2018, every Nickelodeon Family and Nicktoons Family original series was made available for streaming on Netflix, with no plans to put them up for streaming on Hulu; however, some series are available for free on the Nickelodeon Family mobile app and YouTube a la YTV Direct. However, upon the launch of Flare+, all Aura series excluding Islands of Wakfu were pulled from Netflix.

On February 23rd, 2018, CG66 Studios shut down its Ohio offices, citing safety concerns. The same day, the sales for both Nickelodeon XD and Nicktoons XD were finalized. The proceeds would go towards licensing several anime series that has not been released in the United States at the time.

In March 2018, Viacom International Media Networks Europe sued Jetix Cymru for using the TeenNick branding for a French general entertainment channel not specifically aimed at teens; Viacom Europe and Jetix Cymru have since reached an out-of-court settlement, including a rename of the channel as Aura.

On March 18th, 2018, CG66 Studios announced it was shuttering its Southeast Asia division, and will sell off its operations except those directly owned by Aura International.

On March 21st, 2018, rumors began circulating that CG66 Studios was planning to either shut down or sell the U.S. Cartoon Network XD channel. Acknowledging this, it was announced that Cartoon Network XD Retro would rebrand as Aura Retro should such an announcement be made. Previous sale talks occurred with the Canadian and British feeds. On the same day, the sale for CN XD UK was finalized.

As operations for Cartoon Network XD continued to wind down, Nickelodeon announced on April 2nd, 2018 that it was ending its licensing agreement with the main Cartoon Network XD channel in the United States, in favor of an expanded agreement with Nickelodeon Family Networks, USA. The same day, Jetix Cymru sued Aura Xtreme Networks for not strongly committing to the sale of Vortexx Network, as Google Fiber continues to drop it in certain markets.

On April 7th, 2018, Aura Xtreme Networks filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy, subsequently selling off Vortexx Network to Axiom Entertainment, and the English distribution rights for most anime distributed by Cartoon Network XD to NickFamily Studios.

In June 2018, it was announced that CG66 Studios has extended its deal with WarnerMedia through 2026; the conditions are that Cartoon Network XD's branding deal will expire before or during July 2018, at which point the channel will be rebranded under the "Aura" branding.

In July 2018, CG66 Studios began talks with Mystical Entertainment regarding the translation of their productions and licenses into other languages. A deal was reached on July 2nd, 2018. The deal was terminated in October 2018, following Jetix Cymru's lawsuit against Mystical Entertainment. Just a day later, Jetix Cymru announced that it would open up a translation division aimed specifically at anime that had their license dropped by NickFamily Licensing without a dub being produced.

In August 2018, a DVD distribution unit, NickFamily DVD Distribution, opened up to make up for the lack of DVD releases by the studio (prior to opening up the unit, only a select few series from the studio and its subsidiaries were released to DVD, mostly after first broadcasting on TV). DVD releases handled by the unit are limited to Region 1; Region 2-4 DVD releases would instead be handled by Jetix Cymru.

On August 16th, 2018, shortly after Rainbow Puppies was announced, it was announced that Aura Television Productions had entered a ten-series exclusive deal with Netflix, meaning that the next ten series whose digital distribution rights are with Aura Television Productions and are not meant to be first-run on television would have its streaming rights exclusive to Netflix. The deal would end in 2020 due to a decrease in production of their Netflix content.

In October 2018, it was announced that all of TeleAmerica's then-currently-running original series would move to Aura and AuraToons, in favor of newer original series. The same month, in light of the charges against Mystical Entertainment for money laundering and embezzlement, NickFamily began to review their financial statements from 2017 to try and detect any problems from the NickFamily Anime sale and related sell-offs of rerun-only networks. Following this, Jetix Cymru announced their intent to sue Mystical Entertainment; NickFamily Studios and Aura Television Productions are named parties in the suit.

On October 25th, 2018, NickFamily Scandinavia and Oceania announced they would rebrand as Aura in November 2018.

In November 2018, Disney decided not to renew its branding license for the Greenlandic feed of Disney XD for undisclosed reasons, which led to the channel announcing its rebrand as a feed of Aura and announcing the sale of Disney Channel Greenland. However, this may be redacted after November 6th, 2018, as CG66 Studios' non-Greenlandic divisions, as well as SurgeAnime Broadcasting Worldwide and Corus Entertainment, have sued the channel for money laundering and breach of contract.

On November 13th, 2018, upon learning of AniSeed's low ratings and possibility of staying on being low, Aura International and YTV Family began to jointly bid for the channel and its broadcast rights. They later launched a bid for its parent company AniDigital and announced that if they won the bid, they would sell AniSeed Classics to SurgeAnime Broadcasting Worldwide. However, they have dropped their bid upon learning that V Fuel was also for sale.

It has since been announced that AuraSun would launch on January 25th, 2019.

Decline (2019)
On March 6th, 2019, the studio's Hungarian division declared insolvency, and subsequently decided to sell off Disney XD's standalone Hungarian feed (as well as selling off the Hungarian distribution rights to the Aura Television Productions library). The division stated that piracy, less acquired programming, and changes in the market led them to file for insolvency. Aura Television Productions representatives have stated earlier that the Hungarian division "wasn't making as much money as the other divisions".

On March 7th, 2019, Jetix Cymru disclosed that a net loss was possible in the wake of Brexit.

On March 9th, 2019, the studio's Dutch division declared insolvency, and the main division had until March 30th, 2019 to find a buyer, or they may be forced to liquidate the entire division. The deadline was later extended to the end of May 2019. A final extension was later granted until the end of July 2019.

CG66 Studios' South Korean and Greenlandic divisions were reported to have been headed towards insolvency not too long after the announcement of the Dutch division going insolvent.

Rumors have spread that CG66 Studios may spin-off Aura International/Aura Television Productions, including NickFamily Studios, Jetix Cymru, FlareNetworks, and NickFamily Licensing, into its own separate company. CG66 Studios stated that they probably won't do so "until the time is right".

Jetix Cymru announced on March 25th, 2019 that they would shutter their North American anime licensing unit and transfer their licenses to sister company AuraAnime Licensing by the end of May 2019. Following this was an announcement on April 17th, 2019 that Jetix Cymru would spin-off its UK anime licensing operations into AuraAnime Licensing UK at a not-yet-specified date (AuraAnime Licensing UK was later opened in 2020). On April 30th, 2019, rumors began circulating that the production company as a whole would be rebranded following the sale of Disney XD Wales.

It was reported that CG66 Studios, as a whole, was financially struggling and is trying to spin-off its Aura division before the entirety of the company declares bankruptcy.

On May 5th, 2019, CG66 Studios announced that it would spin-off all of its Aura-related divisions, including subsidiaries of Aura Television Productions, AuraAnime Licensing Oceania, AuraAnime Licensing US, and Aura Films, before the end of June 2019. Any existing deals between CG66 Studios and other companies will be transferred to the spun-off companies until their expiration. CG66 Studios' Swedish division, which only operated as a distributor for other networks at the time, filed for bankruptcy (konkurs) around the same time and is trying to look for a buyer.

On May 21st, 2019, Aura Television Productions announced that three channels- Aura, Aura Retro, and Flare (due to the current branding license from Viacom for NickFamily networks not extending to any Pluto TV plans), may have online over-the-air feeds launched on Pluto TV in the future (particularly after Aura Television Productions is spun-off from CG66 Studios). Aura has stated that currently, only series from Aura Television Productions (including NickFamily Studios, Jetix Cymru, and AuraAnime Licensing) will be featured- the vast amount of anime on its cable/satellite networks, particularly whose broadcast rights were bought from other licensors (such as Funimation and PonyCan USA), cannot be shown on Pluto TV without first signing distribution deals with the licensors. This plan was scrapped by the end of May 2019 due to YTV Family stating they were interested in a potential deal with Bantaview, with most of their programming set to be available on Aura Television Productions' Bantaview channel.

In August 2019, Aura Television Productions announced that their production contract with Nickelodeon, which was originally included with the branding license deal, was expiring and that they would refuse to renew the contract. This would create rumors that 2024's branding license expiration would also be met with a refusal of renewal.

On August 22nd, 2019, Aura Television Productions announced that their deal with Netflix was nearing its end and that they would discontinue their livestream app NickFamily Stream by the end of April 2020. A new streaming service, Flare+, was also unveiled and would launch in May 2020.

The spin-off of all Aura divisions was completed on September 14th, 2019.

Further decline and liquidation (2020)
Since the spin-off of all Aura divisions, several of the studio's former divisions have been sold off or shuttered. In late 2019, Aura mentioned they were looking to sell off the AuraAnime channel, as they considered it an asset that isn't making them money; subsequently, AuraAnime Licensing adopted the trade name AuraAnime in 2021. In January 2020, Aura Oceania temporarily shut down both of Aura's Australian/New Zealand channels while they relocated their headquarters to New Zealand; AuraToons' transmitter was later permanently turned off. Aura International have composed a list of channels they were looking to sell off, TeleAmerica and Aura Retro being among them. Jetix Cymru would be shut down on August 30th, 2020 and its assets absorbed into Aura Television Productions UK; NickFamily Stream was also shut down at the end of April 2020. Meanwhile, Disney XD Wales was put up for sale due to the emergence of Disney+ in the region.

The last two Nickelodeon Family-branded channels outside of the United States, the Welsh feeds of Nickelodeon Family and Nicktoons Family, were merged into Disney Channel Wales, which was then rebranded Aura, on September 1st, 2020; subsequently, the last Nicktoons Family channel was rebranded as NFCartoons at the start of 2022.

On September 20th, 2020, CG66 Studios, after over a year of dormancy following the spin-off of all Aura assets, announced that it had filed for chapter 7 bankruptcy and would sell off all its remaining assets to other companies.