Just How Bad is the CW4Kids?

I just deleted my whole entire response to your post, but here's the short version:

- We were comparing different ratings. I wasn't pitting ABC and CW against each other, I was looking at each block compared to their overall rating a year ago.

- Pok?mon does well at 9 AM on Cartoon Network.

- Kamen Rider Dragon Knight won't premiere in Japan first, since it's an English adaptation, not a dub.

- 4Kids' revenue was up this last quarter, they just had bigger losses from upgrading their Chaotic website and other stuff of the sort. The revenue from the Chaotic TCG doubled from $2.4 million to over $5 million from the first to second quarter, so it's pretty clear that consumers is not getting tired of card games. In fact, it's one of the businesses that has remained stable in spite of a weakening economy.
 
Okay, I concede that the ABC Kids has gained ground over the CW over the past year when in direct competition. So in that aspect I was wrong.

But it doesn't change the fact that as a whole, the CW4Kids' ratings have remained on par with the Kids' WB's a year ago. Overall the Kids' WB got 0.98 on average in the same weeks that the CW4Kids, in a transition phase with some obvious water-testing going on, got 0.88. A pretty neglible difference when considering the circumstances. So the CW4Kids' performance isn't really any worse on its own, though it is in comparison with one of its competitors anyway, ABC Kids.

Regardless, the real testing grounds will be the 2008-09 season, which unfortunately doesn't get into full swing until the midseason. 4Kids will be off to a slow start for sure, the test will be to see how their new programming for the block in the midseason will do.


And they undoubtedly won't receive the season until it's complete. So no, I'm sure they can't show four or five new episodes in the fall like you said.

Besides, the show has pretty strong continuity, so it would probably do better with continuous new episodes rather than having it broken up constantly.


The fact that none of them are WBA should be a hint that 4Kids won't have the rights to them come September, so they can't. Why else would they bring back Skunk Fu instead of continuing with the successful Tom & Jerry Tales?


If you want to get nitpicky, Dragon Knight is an American adaptation of Ryuki rather than a dub, so it's not quite what aired in Japan. RollBots will be premering at roughly the same time (February 09) and I can basically guarantee that Teletoon won't be showing Season 2 of Spectacular Spider-Man first. Teletoon schedules things really oddly, though, so they're hard to predict.

And what does Wolverine and the X-Men have to do with anything?


Chaotic did great in the 9:00 AM timeslot.


The Fox deal costs more for less timeslots, that's the difference. That's what Kahn has been kvetching about the entire time.

Besides, only two of the shows have a card game that actually plays a role in it (no, there really isn't a card game aspect in Dinosaur King, despite that being the kind of property it's based on). That's hardly a "myriad."


Because 4Kids is basically abandoning that competitor, which with its lineup will undoubtely take a huge hit this season, and within a year that competitor will be completely eliminated from the picture.

That and yeah, the people running the CW aren't all that smart.


Different strokes I guess.
 
I agree WB dosen't care about cartoons, ending a very long era. Goodbye:
Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes

Scooby-Doo

Yogi Bear

Flinstones

Jetsons

Batman, Superman (with the exception of Brave and the Bold)

Justice League

And so many others.
 
It is true that CW has made some bad business decisions, but at the end of the day what matters is the shows. The reasons CW/Kids WB/4 Kids are doing bad is because most of their shows aren't interesting enough. Hence why it's getting beat by reruns of Hannah Montana. Let's face it, this is Saturday morning. It's not as if they are moving shows around (like the primetime people are doing with certain shows) and kids can't find it. The fact is that they can, but just don't watch it cause they see the ads and say, "looks stupid" and watch reruns of cable shows.



Yea, it's amazing how a dumb little network that began with silly primetime soaps is improving as a result of CW's mistakes. lol.



That's kind of true. The truth is that you NEVER air your best show at 8am. But, yea, 9am is not bad at all. I recall as a kid that most, if not all of us, were awake by 9am anyway.



And some air it on a completely different channel. That's what happened with me and FOX Kids back in the `90s. It aired on one of the Independent Stations. Then that station became a WB affilate in 1995 (with the launch of the network) and for TWO years I got FOX Kids AND Kids WB on the same exact channel. In other words, in my city these two line-ups weren't even going against each other. Then, after two years FOX Kids moved to another Independent Station for a year till moving to UPN affliate where it remained till the merger in 2006. Now, it airs on My Network TV.
 
Hasn't "cheaply-dubbed marketable children's entertainment" been a staple of KidsWB after they started to air 2 hours of Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh years ago?


Didn't Spectacular Spider-Man originally premiere in March?


As long as the cartoon is interesting, the nature of their origin doesn't matter.

Personally, I will wait to see how CW4Kids fairs once they get their own lineup in place with new episodes.



Up until 2003 Foxkids/FoxBox aired on the local Fox affliate before moving to the UPN affliate, conversely KidsWB had for a long time had been scheduled on sundays on an independent station up until 2004, before moving to the WB affliate and saturdays
 
It's amazing how affliates treat cartoons, man. Nowadays I can understand, but back in the `90s, for example, it was kinda dumb. My local FOX decided not to air the line-up in favor of news. Why? I mean, most people watch the news at either 6pm and/or 11pm. So, what's the point of airing so much news? Especially when at the time, FOX Kids had Power Rangers and Animaniacs which were the two biggest kids shows. They could have been making so much ad money that instead went to an Indy Station.
 
Yeah. Remember the company that brought you those shows initially as well. Now, instead of two hours, there's at least double that amount. And at least one hour of that is Chaotic reruns.

If you want to nitpick, yeah, and they ran out of episodes because they only showed 12 of the 13 for about 15 weeks. Compare that to Legion of Super Heroes premiered with a cycle of four episodes at the beginning of the season, another cycle of four episodes around late October, a small cycle of two episodes in mid-January, and the final cycle of three episodes in March. Because we still have the foolish 13-episode seasons on most domestically-made fare, American shows have a sad lifespan in this country. And when an episodic series like Spectacular Spider-Man airs in a row like they did, the season seems kind of short.

I completely agree with this comment and will add no more to it.

You know how much of Skunk Fu 4Kids owns?

NONE. They got broadcast rights to the new season because Cartoon Network surprisingly ordered another season AND a movie. New episodes means another broadcast venue.

You want to know why Tom and Jerry Tales ISN'T coming back on? It's not because the crew behind the series didn't want to make another season, because they did. 4Kids chose not to renew the series because it doesn't fit their public persona.

So, instead of Tom and Jerry Tales, stay tuned to Viva Pinata!

Yeah, but the Japanese saw the original first. The UK will probably end up airing Dragon Knight first about the beginning of the year.

YTV tentatively has it coming on around October or so. It is their property, you know.

Well, Teletoon premieres the series next week, and it still wouldn't surprise me if they at least preview the second season before C4K does if not premiere the first couple of episodes before it airs in the US.

Wolverine and the X-Men is airing in the US on Nicktoons Network beginning in March. YTV will premiere Wolverine and the X-Men in a couple of weeks. They're getting the series, which is ready, first, though Marvel had originally said the episodes wouldn't be ready until next year, which we know now is untrue.

And Shaggy and Scooby-Doo did better in the 9 AM timeslot.

So, instead of doing what any real businessman would do and renegotiate for a better contract, they actually chose to go to competitor with one extra e/i-filled hour instead? And they chose to fill that extra hour with reruns of Chaotic when they do?

Here's a concept. Why won't they just stop being subservient to a broadcast network and launch their own network? Are they so cheap not to launch a potentially marketable children's network or are they afraid they'll be exposed as a one-card-trick pony?

Well, games play a lot of roles in the type of programming 4Kids pick up. They picked up Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Chaotic, Kirby, Sonic, Viva Pinata, DiGata, and Dinosaur King (the card game based on that property will launch 1Q 2009 with the rest of the merchandising). Properties that they didn't turn into game properties like One Piece, G.I. Joe, and Shaman King were given the heave-ho. The only reason TMNT is still big is because they get a huge cut of every merchandise thanks to their licensing arrangements.

Its lineup, I might remind you, is STILL programmed by 4Kids until the end of the season.

So, you're saying that 4Kids is basically abandoning its other block, at risk of ruining their own reputation and status, leaving behind the fans that still remain watching the block, and creating a negative number in their finances, just for the sake of eliminating them? That's . . . stupid.

If 4Kids didn't have the CW deal to fall back on, then they wouldn't be so destructive towards their Fox block. But, if the mass exodus of CW affiliates (led by many of the flagship Tribune-owned affiliates in New York, Chicago, DC, Los Angeles, Denver, Portland, St. Louis, and New Orleans which have or in the process of shedding the CW branding from their on-air personas) is enacted at the end of the season, there might not even be a CW at season's end.

Then what?

No network means no deal. No deal means no block on the CW. And 4Kids' loss on Fox could be another studio's gain. Right now, Cookie Jar, Taffy, and Nelvana, already looking to expand into broadcast television in the US because of February's upcoming digital transition, may have their eyes set on a potential Fox deal, because Fox still wants the audience.

But stranger things have happened. I bet 4Kids realizes something's wrong at The CW, they will grovel on their knees and try to renew their ties with Fox.
 
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