Stop Blaming Cable. It's the Networks Fault.

I can't speak for all of the networks, but I think the topic is correct in terms of say Fox Kids.

In it's glory days it had a pretty diverse line up. A cartoon featuring a classic Looney Tunes characters, a couple of LT styled shows (Animaniacs and Tiny Toons), a few comic book based cartoons, a few kidcoms here and there,

It's ratings coincidently dwindle when most of their line up was altered to combat with Pokemon.
 
To bad the ratings don't reflect that. Turbo was a flop. They rebounded with PRiS, but ever since the franchise has been on life support. The ONLY reason the show is still on the air is because kids, for whatever reason, continue to have their parents buy the action figures. It's like, "we like the toys but hate the show." The franchise is like a 30-min toy commerical.

Does it matter? The merchandise sells and they still make money, and in the end that's all that matters. Why do you think CN still airs Bakugan despite its poor ratings?

It's like Power Rangers, man. The video games sell, but most people stopped caring about the show like in 2001 or 2002.

That's not what the ratings say.

Of course it does. One #1 show must end before another begins. Spongebob wouldn't have become the #1 kids show if kids didn't start losing interest in Pokemon. It's like Power Rangers. It was #1 because the CBS version of TMNT was declining in quality and the third movie was considered as garbage by most. If TMNT would have still be producing stuff that kids considered quality work then Power Rangers would have never been #1.

Network and cable are two different beasts entirely. Unless something is huge, like Pokemon, network and cable kidvid is almost never in competition with each other. Plus there's still no correlation. Spongebob was already popular during PokeMania, and even then there's zero concrete proof for your "there can only be one" Highlander theory.
 
Got Boomerang and Nicktoons Network regular when we upgraded earlier this year. Boomerang was awesome at first, but now I only watch it a few times a month. :shrug:
 
PBS has ALWAYS had strong ratings. But, unforunately, their target audience is pre-schoolers and VERY young school age kids.



Exactly. Too much focus on Digimon and not enough on re-capturing the formula that made them a hit to begin with. I mean, yea, they tried with that Steven Spielberg monster cartoon, but they were too quick to give up when that failed.



True, but remember that FOX had to share profits with Saban. So, they weren't making as much money as you'd think. They were making more money when the shows was #1 and they were making millions in advertising. Disney, on the other hand, has had more luck since they pocket everything.



This was once the #1 kids show and now its barely in the top 10 and it airs in the #3 kids channel.



You want proof? Pokemon declining in ratings and Spongebob increasing in ratings was such news that even Access Hollywood, of all places, had a report on it in 2000/2001.

See...it works this way:

Kids lose interest in a show, so they go searching for another one. And Spongebob, if you recall, just happened to air weekday afternoons like Pokemon. And remember...this was back in the day when Spongebob was new and didn't have enough episodes to air all day. The show had like two or three time slots. So, it definitely stole some of Pokemon's audience.
 
But they haven't. Spectacular Spider-Man and TMNT are great shows and they do well compared to the rest but their ratings are still way behind Nick and sometimes CN. So you're not proving your point very well that "if you make a good cartoon they'll watch it".

Kids do a lot of things on Saturday mornings. Quite a bit more so than in the past. Why? Because they don't just have Saturday for cartoons anymore so the demand is far lower. So they join more sports teams and do other activities with no need to get a "fix" so to speak. Why do you think Saturday night is so weak for CN and why Thursday premieres do better than Friday premieres? Because kids are doing stuff on Friday and Saturday evenings. This same thing applies to Saturday mornings but there will always be somebody watching Spongebob whenever it's on... it just does that well no matter what it would seem.
 
So, if Heroes' ratings were down, but Gurren Lagann's ratings were up, does that mean GL's rise was directly correlated to adults saying "screw Heroes, let's all watch GL"?
 
I found this post I wrote for a weblog's comments section concerning the subject to be very good, so I decided to share it here:

"It's unfortunate that we now only have one programming block carrying on the Saturday morning TV tradition of original and traditional shows on a network many online observers believe will not stay for long. Competition from cable/satellite TV, the Children's Television Act of 1990, and profitable newscasts may have ended the tradition on the other networks, but there is still a chance they could program successful time periods on Saturday mornings like they do in prime time.

If an effort were to be made to get the 1990 act of Congress repealed, the networks should seize the opportunity during and afterwards and get in contact with creators and producers who want their shows available to all audiences. Cable and satellite TV should not be these creators' only options to get their material on the air, as there could be no one willing to accept their material, even on 24-hour or niche stations. The networks also need to expand on their definition of what audiences for traditional Saturday morning programming may be and end this notion about animated cartoons being made especially for children. Theatrical cartoons such as the Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes shorts were not created with a target audience in mind. Limiting your perspective will limit your subjects and potential audience.

When the Children's Television Act is gone and the new shows are getting created, the networks should tell advertisers about the potential audience on a day of the week when many people are still home, especially in the morning. Once everything is in place, have faith in your programming, listen to your viewers, and don't discourage creators as they work to bring something different to television.

I assure the networks great success on Saturday mornings just like every night of the week if they are willing to program this time period again. Paid programming, is the easy way out when it comes to revenue, but it’s also a sign for viewers that you have given up to pressure and you’re not trying to entertain them or keep them tuned to one station, even if it's a short-term solution. If you succeed by making Saturday mornings a priority again, advertisers, viewers, and animation lovers will have faith in your programming again. The future of television and animation in the USA will be secured."
 
I'd say the demise of network television animation was party the I/E movement, partly a drastic rise in cable television success on Saturday mornings (no network can touch Nick's SatAM ratings last time I checked), partly a lack of good cartoons coming on the networks (but there were certainly some jems and still are) and partly the networks more sudden desire to be rid of all kids programing asside from the manditory I/E stuff. But you must not forget the rise of technology that kids get hooked on and now that even kids can watch shows over the internet easily enough there's no telling how much weaker Saturday morning network kids ratings will become.

I mean the networks are in sad shape when they have to rely on 4kids to run two blocks for a while. Disney never does anything notable with ABC's Saturday mornings either. But I see great cartoons like Spectacular Spider-Man and Ninja Turtles do better than most but still end up being significantly weaker than the cable offerings on Nick and sometimes even CN and I say it's not just the lack of quality programing by any means. Kids have moved on to cable. Networks dropped the ball at one point and kids gave up on networks... so networks gave up on kids. It's all been a visual downward spiral with many causes not just one in particular.

I hope Jeff Harris pops into this thread so he can explain things better than I can.
 
I don't disagree that technology is partially the source of the competition. Like you, I see the other things you've listed, plus the lack of diversity to have helped reduce Saturday mornings to one network.
 
I agree with Sketch there is not one factor one source to blame. It is a combanation of factors that together caused this decline. Bad shows? There were some even durring Saturday Morning programings Prime. E/I shows, always there even if were not named back in the day. Cable, it's been a factor but it's been growing as one in recent years. There are many things to blame, from the companies to the shows to well anything. No one thing is to blame.
 
The last three, like MMPR, were imported by Saban from Japan with the same formula. However, none of them had the same kind of staying power. S4 (for short) was a mid-season replacement on ABC, and as I recall, Gary Owens was the announcer. One of the Lawrence brothers was the star. It bombed. TTAFBH was such a dud, I never saw a single frame of it.

In sharp contrast, Pokemon, which started in syndication here before being picked up by WB in Feb. '99, touched off the current wave of anime imports, which hasn't really stopped. It's just that American distributors are more aware of the diversity of tastes AND demo groups.
 
It's possible within the geek demographic, but general public-wise maybe not. Pokemon and Spongebob were different shows but they appealed to kids in general. Remember...kids aren't one-taste people. They enjoy action shows as much as a comedy. For example, when Power Ranger was #1 you know what was #2? Animaniacs. Seriously. Kids love both genres. So, comedy show stealing audience from an action show (or vice versa) is not unlikely.



E/I is full of loop holes. When a show like Saved by the Bell is labeled as E/I you can't take it seriously.



I don't know how big of a difference the Internet makes. Most parents probably have restrictions on the amount of Internet usage, so kids have to divide their time doing various things.



Kids aren't anti-network. They'll return if the shows are good. If kids were anti-network, PBS wouldn't be pulling good ratings.
 
I agree, but they just haven't connected with kids. TMNT, if you recall, aired on CN for a while (and in a good time slot - 6pm) and it flopped if I'm not mistaken.

As for Spider-Man...I don't know...I think that show suffers from the same problems The Batman had. It's a little too light-hearted and trying to be cool and the character designs are kinda unappealing.



hahaha. Yea, okay. Kids are fatter than ever cause they barely do anything. Sure, we had TV and video games but that's about it. We left the house every once in a while. The addition of the Internet has given kids these days more reasons to stay indoors. I mean, heck, kids don't even have to leave the house anymore to play with their friends. :shrug:
 
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