Pictured: Casper and Friends airs twice daily on Teletoon Retro.

Teletoon Retro has become the first all-digital Canadian specialty channel to cross the 8 million subscriber mark.

The niche channel, an English language service launched in October 2007 by 50/50 partners Astral Media and Corus Entertainment, has built a solid following airing cartoons that parents once enjoyed, and can now watch with their kids.

“In just over three years since launch, we’ve surpassed all of these objectives and built Teletoon Retro into an over eight-million subscriber service that offers nostalgic quality programming and has a strong co-view audience of parents and kids along with adults 18-49,” Teletoon Canada president Len Cochrane said Wednesday in a statement.

A French language countpart, Teletoon Rétro, was launched in September 2008, and more recent subscriber gains were aided by free previews, including one in 2010 for Rogers Cable customers.

Teletoon Retro has also surpassed its forerunner specialty channel, Teletoon, which reaches into 7.9 million homes through its English and French networks.

The retro channel’s broadcast license stipulates that classic animation and classic animation-related programs that air on the digital channel must have started production at least ten years before their exhibition.