Is Cable Really "The Problem" Of What's Ailing Sat AM Cartoons on Broadcast TV?

I guess i have a problem saying that cable is the problem if only because only 87% of americans have cable or satellite. according to this: http://www.tvtechnology.com/article/12954

That means that 13% of americans do not have cable. Which means that 13% of the 304 million americans (99% of which have televisions, i think that might be in the above link as well) are exclusive to the broadcast networks. So that means that somewhere around 39 million americans are exclusive to broadcast networks. That being said, the broadcast networks are also available in the 87% of households that have cable too.

What i'm saying here is that if you have 13% of the population exclusively on one of maybe (what is it now) 10 channels, you should be getting higher ratings than 1.0 (this is ABC's average ratings who is the highest saturday morning broadcaster right now). Which is extremely bad considering how much of the audience is exclusive to broadcast.

My point is that cable has nothing to do with the 39 million people that are exclusive to broadcast television. The programming has gotten far worse. So that means that the fault is the people who program the blocks. Is Disney to blame? No, because they are consistently beating everyone else so they have no reason to try harder. Is 4kids to blame? I gotta think yes because they have 4 hours of weekly programming that is not e/i and they are essentially failing. So i guess im blaming the producers on the poor quality of shows.

I think the programming has gotten far worse because of the lack of competition. Didn't companies start pulling out b/c the FCC made it so that they couldn't make as much money off of advertisers anymore?

So, what i'm saying is, i don't blame cable at all, i blame poor regulation by the FCC and a dip in quality of shows. Because the problem certainly isn't that cable is taking away viewers from broadcast, there are still plenty of viewers exclusive to broadcast, its just that there is nothing good on the broadcast networks.
 
Wow Silverstar! What a question you asked. I didn't see this coming at all.

This is based on general observations.
-Around the 90's Disney and Time-Warner were competing against each other. However, ABC and TW were not competing each other.
-Both Disney and TW wanted a broadcast channel. Disney bought ABC. TW created WB.
-Disney brought in their cable shows into ABC Saturday morning. TW created Kids WB for their Saturday morning. Apparently, TW also removed BB&T from ABC.

By having ABC bought by Disney, ABC automatically became a competitor against TW. That is why I keep saying if ABC was still independent, BB&T could still be on their network. Those two companies were not competing against each other.

I hope you're not assuming a naivety on my part, really I hope you're not. Out of that list, the only 2 I'm not familiar with are Bohbot and Terrytoons. I'm aware of the other companies listed. I'm just not listing as many examples as you are.

I really didn't allude to this. I actually said the last HB show I remember was Pirates - on ABC. But this wasn't what I was really commenting on. I was talking about HB being dead in spirit, not in name. You said HB was the other way around.

And technically, you're right. Except for one thing. Megas reappeared on Toonami Jetstream after the show was canceled. One of the problems with Megas is that it was a toonami show. And we all know how well CN treated the toonami block. Courage is a comedy show from the Cartoon Fridays block. That show will probably re-air throughout the years. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about many, many toonami shows. Megas still has the potential of being a classic, even if CN chooses not to re-air it.

And finally, back to the title of this thread. In my opinion, cable is part of the problem with broadcast tv today. It's not the entire problem, just part of the problem. I do think the FCC and the broadcast networks themselves are partly responsible to what happened to cartoons today. I just feel cable played a large role in it.
 
I've posted this before, but here's my reasons why Saturday mornings are dead (with some updating/rewriting added):

1. Technology. Between the Internet, cable, DVDs, computer and video games, mp3 players, cell phones, etc., there's a *lot* more distractions now for kids than in the past. Additionally, VCRs, Tivos/DVRs, DVDs, and the networks' websites posting their shows online shortly after they air all mean not having to get up at a specific time (Saturday mornings) anymore.

2. The rise of cable TV programming in the 90's as a major broadcast TV competitor. No need to wait until Saturdays to watch first-run cartoons---there's whole *networks* devoted to them now (well, sort of, judging from Cartoon Network of late).

3. The increased emphasis in the 80s and 90's on news programming (which is a local station's most profitable source of income) and first-run syndicated daytime adult programming (talk shows, "Judge ", infomercials, etc.) virtually eliminating non-E/I-required kids' programming. Of course, even if stations *want* to run cartoons, they might not be able to, because of...

4. The various media mergers of the 90's (ABC and Disney, CBS and Viacom (for a period), Time-Warner merging with Ted Turner, etc.) leading to homogenization of programming on broadcast and cable TV (with now just several enormous conglomerates owning most media outlets, broadcast and cable, in the US---and no, that's not a good thing...) and the practice of "vertical integration". Hence, only Disney-made shows on ABC; special exclusive one-studio or one-programmer deals like Qubo, CW4Kids, etc.; and no older shows being syndicated because, say, Time-Warner only wants "Looney Tunes" to air on CN/Boomerang/other networks they own, and if they decide they can't be bothered to air them on any of their own networks (despite the high number of networks they might own), the show gets to collect dust on a shelf.

Accompanying all of this is the death of the independent television station in the US; historically, these stations were a big source of kids' programming in the past. However, the recent rise of the WB/UPN (now the CW), Pax/"i"/ION, Spanish-language networks like Telemundo and Univision, home shopping channels, etc. has killed off independents in most cities.

Those are IMO the main four reasons for Saturday mornings becoming dead; factors like the rise of anime, the E/I requirement, etc. are merely after-the-fact aspects----by the time the three-hour requirement, the "Poke-onslaught" on the WB, and heavier emphasis on cartoons produced for cable, etc. came to the fore in the late 90's, Saturday mornings were already pretty much dead...

Thus, I'd say while cable's rise in programming's had an impact, other factors also killed off Saturday morning programming on ABC, CBS and NBC by the time we reached the SpongeBob-era...

-B.
 
Yeah, they were. All the Warner Bros. shows, save The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show, the first couple of seasons of Beetlejuice, and Free Willy, were largely on Fox (the last couple of seasons of Beetlejuice were exclusive to Fox, meaning they were competing against ABC).

Fox created Fox. CBS got bought by Viacom. Paramount created UPN. NBC . . . well, they bought Universal, not the other way around. The argument it kind of moot.

Nickelodeon brought their cable shows on CBS a year before Disney brought their cable shows to ABC. And when Time Warner created Kids' WB, they still had The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show on ABC for five more years. Again, moot.

Let me see if I understand what you're saying. Since you're claiming that Disney and Time Warner are competitors keeping shows from each other off their channels, then:

- How do you explain the fact that ABC broadcasts The Bachelor and The Bachelorette and will soon broadcast Hank, V, Eastwick, The Forgotten, and The Middle, all from Warner Bros. Television? That kind of makes the whole argument that Disney keeps Warner Bros. shows off their lineup because they compete against them.

- How do you explain ABC has broadcast rights to many Warner Bros. film franchises, including the Harry Potter films, The Polar Express, Corpse Bride, and others? If they were such persnickety rivals, don't you think ABC wouldn't want those films on their network?

- How do you explain that Disney has access to films and television series from Time Warner throughout all their cable networks?

And also, I'd like to point out that even before Disney bought ABC, ABC and Disney had a LONG courtship to say the least. The first television production of Disney, Disneyland, aired on ABC, and since 1954, there has always been a Disney-produced series/special on ABC. Disney's always been close to ABC, even in those "independent" years.

I'm not calling you naive. But if you think that's how I feel, you're welcome to that opinion. Also, you failed to acknowledge that without Turner and Time-Warner, Hanna-Barbera could have been a footnote in history, disappearing in the mists that claimed Filmation, Depatie-Freleng, Terrytoons, and Bohbot (BKN). I didn't ask for any examples.

Yeah, you did. Yeah it was:

Of course, I was proven wrong because I had totally forgotten about the animated version of Dumb and Dumber. That was the last Hanna-Barbera series on ABC. But you're trying to make it like Disney just yanked everything from Hanna-Barbera and if Turner/Time Warner bought it, shows from that studio would still be on the air today on ABC. I disagree because, and I've stated it before, Hanna-Barbera was largely on its last legs by the time Turner bought the company and the company reinvigorated the studio for syndication and cable rather than the broadcast model they oversaturated for three decades.

To which I say you're wrong. The spirit of Hanna-Barbera exists in the shows from Cartoon Network Studios. Just because you don't like the shows from the studio today doesn't mean the spirit isn't there. The spirit of Hanna-Barbera also exists in Scooby-Doo, which has been around for 40 years and still churning about new movies every year and a new series every decade since the 1960s. Not many shows have that kind of pedigree, and I doubt many will in the future.

Yeah, but that was about a year after the show was canceled. And the series was still fresh in the minds of the viewers. But broadband media doesn't have a fraction of the audience as cable television. And aren't you the guy parroting the fact that broadcast needs shows over cable? At least with cable, you'll get more eyeballs watching than on broadband.

Teen Titans was a Toonami show. Naruto was a Toonami show. Ben 10 was a Toonami show. What are you getting at? The thing is Megas XLR wasn't a Viz Media show, and they pretty much ran Jetstream and put in mostly their fare. Viz got . . . I hesitate to use the word "greedy" but in regards to Toonami, their lack of cooperation kind of led to the block's demise in the final years. And since they pretty much ran Jetstream and created the circumstances that helped shut it down, that's why Megas XLR was short-lived on Jetstream.

And it does. But you are aware that Megas XLR premiered outside of Toonami in its pilot form and is, at its core, a comedy series, right? The thing with Megas is that it's aimed towards older audiences. It'd actually be a great addition to the Adult Swim lineup. Sure beats The Oblongs.

I agree with the latter point because I think they should move the series to Adult Swim. I can't agree about the Toonami series. With the exception of Sailor Moon, those series are available on DVD and still have large legions of fans and a lot of them are classics.

And I think we'll end on agreement with that quote. Cable did play a part, but not as significant as you claim. And just like you say cable is a problem, you can also blame broadband channels in more recent times. But in reality, broadcast television chose laziness rather than creativity. They gave up rather than tried to compete against cable networks. If I was in charge of a broadcast network, I'd be in the business of trying to recapture younger audiences. I think that's what the three should be doing rather than relying on just E/I programming and cable reruns.
 
Cable isn't "The Problem" of why Saturday morning broadcast TV in the shape that it's in, although it is a factor. Not the sole factor, mind you.

The current Saturday morning situation can be attributed just as much to monopoly on the part of the big companies, the arrival of other media like the internet, VHS, DVD and On Demand, and the alphabet networks' inability and/or unwillingness to stay in the game and continue competing for ratings as it can be for cable, if not more so. Cable didn't become serious competition for the alphabet networks until the late 90's, so it's neither fair nor accurate to scapegoat cable and cable alone.
 
While those are certainly factors, I imagine the Saturday Morning market could have survived if they had:

1. Not counted on Pokemon or the Mon type shows to give the money and the ratings. A factor that gave Fox Kids success was having diversity in their shows (Sitcom styled toons, Looney Tunes styled toons, Comic book super hero toons. Not to mention that each comic book toon had a different type of story.) But when Fox tried to out Pokemon Warner Bros, they started going downhill after. Cashing in on what brings the bread is fine, but you should always have something to cusion your fall when said cashcow passes away or gets old.

2. Taking the defeated approach ("We're not going to be successful with all of the competition so we shouldn't even try") rather than putting better effort into their shows. Spend more time improving the product and less blaming the competition for your failure.

3. Most shows on Saturday Mornings are aired excessively during the week. Like all other blocks, Saturday Morning works best when giving you something that isn't aired to death.
 
This is why I hate multi-quotes. There's so much I have to go back to and include. This was my first reply.

Please notice the bold letters. That was the general point I was making. Thanks for elaborating on what I was saying. But hopefully, you do realize that many of the things you said supported what I was saying.

Not sure what you mean by this. Fox was competing against ABC, but I don't recall Time Warner competing with ABC back early in the 90's.

This is all modern day stuff. I was referring to the 1990's. Sure, things have changed in this decade for live action shows, movies and cartoons. Again, in this decade.

Above is what was said initially about Pirates of Dark Water. And now, about spirit...

The spirit of Scooby existing - maybe. The franchise of Scooby existing - definitely. And that's what they do with franchises. They keep churning out decade after decade. Take Transformers for example. Now that's a franchise, it keeps churning out every so often. But the spirit of that show wasn't always there. There were some bad remakes of the show.

Let me go back to CN Studios. Part of me does thanks Turner for acquiring HB. Here's the problem I have with it. They could have kept the name of HB and created a division within it call CN Studios. That division could have made shows for CN while the remaining division would make shows for other channels. HB could have been handled differently after the acquisition. For some reason, it wasn't. This ties in with the spirit of HB being dead. It was acquired and transformed into what it is now - part of a corporate entity, a vehicle for commercialism. Not an outlet for artwork.

Not sure what you mean by this.

Again, not sure what this means. So, I'll rephrase what I said. Megas XLR has the potential of being a classic because it had the spirit of HB. It was a quality show with a continuing plot and any other good accolade that can be included. It has a better chance at being a classic than say Foster's or Billy & Mandy because it was a better show. Even though it had limited seasons and only aired briefly on tv and internet, it still has a better chance at being a classic. And yes, I am biased. But so what? With or without my bias, IT REALLY WAS A BETTER SHOW. I MEAN REALLY.

This will probably require another lengthy answer that I really don't want to get into. So I'll put it this way. Did broadcast tv really get lazy OR were they pushed around by cable? Afterall, Disney bought ABC, Viacom bought CBS, and TW created WB. Those are 3 cable companies that went into broadcast tv.

Then there's Fox and NBC. They started out in broadcast tv and went into cable tv. Cable somehow became more important than broadcast. It seems like cable got the upperhand regardless of how lazy broadcast got.
 
I'm sure that this isn't going to add much, but how hard is it for Time Warner to simply use Boomerang as the classic Hanna-Barbara brand and the main Cartoon Network for the more modern programming?
 
Back
Top