Cinar

CINAR Entertainment Corp., commonly stylized CINAR, was a Montreal-based Canadian company that specialized in creating, producing, and distributing children’s animation and family entertainment. Active from the late 1980s into the early 2000s, CINAR built a library of international co-productions and distributed animated series around the world. Its best-known titles included Caillou, among other animated programs.

In the late 1990s CINAR faced a public controversy over the use of fictitious ownership to obtain government subsidies for certain productions. The resulting investigations and restructuring led to the gradual dissolution of CINAR as an independent entity and the sale or reorganization of its assets.

CINAR’s library and production rights were ultimately acquired by Cookie Jar Group, which itself was later acquired by DHX Media (now WildBrain) in 2012, bringing CINAR’s catalog into the WildBrain library. The CINAR brand itself faded as assets were integrated into larger corporate holdings, but much of its animation library remains active through WildBrain’s distribution channels.

Other uses: The spelling Cinar, or Çınar in Turkish, is used as a surname and place name. Çınar means “plane tree” in Turkish and designates a district in Diyarbakır Province as well as several villages in different provinces, reflecting common Turkish toponymy.