Cookie Jar Group

Cookie Jar Entertainment Inc. (also known as Cookie Jar Group and originally known as Cinar) was a Canadian media production and distribution company owned by WildBrain. The company was first established in 1976 as Cinar Corporation, a Montreal-based studio that was heavily involved in children's entertainment. The company's business model, which included the licensing of its properties into educational markets, had a significant impact on its success; by 1999, Cinar held CDN$1.5 billion of the overall children's television market.

In the 2000s, Cinar became the subject of multiple business scandals, including accusations that the company had used offshore accounts to transfer money out of the company, had plagiarized the concept of one of its series, and had obfuscated the involvement of American screenwriters in its productions in order to continue receiving Canadian tax credits for domestic productions. Over a decade later, these scandals would result in criminal charges, convictions, and fines for co-founder Ronald Weinberg and chief financial officer Hasanain Panju among two other suspects.

Cinar was sold in 2004 for $190 million to a group led by Michael Hirsh, the founder of Nelvana, and changed its name to Cookie Jar Group. In 2008, they agreed to acquire DIC Entertainment, expanding its library. On August 20, 2012, DHX Media (now WildBrain) announced its intent to acquire Cookie Jar Group, in a deal that would make DHX the largest independent owner of children's television programming, and by the end of 2014, Cookie Jar was folded into DHX Media.