Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Did Only Cartoon Network/Adult Swim Stick With Anime?
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DerekL1963
 Subscriber Posts: 1119 Location: Puget Sound |
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One thing I've learned in decades of being in various fandoms (starting when Star Trek was being broadcast in glorious black-and-white) is something that "every fan knows" is very rarely a fact. In this case, it may or may not be a fact - but it isn't relevant.
OK, I see now... you're elevating a supposition to a fact. As the saying goes "it doesn't work that way". |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Though Cartoon Network more or less fell apart around the time of the original Toonami's cancellation, I'd say they've been on the upswing as of late. Teen Titans GO! is the only in-house show over the past few years I genuinely didn't like...too bad the network is so fixated on it, to the detriment of superior shows like OK KO and Steven Universe.
Regarding Pokémon, there's a very good reason for that. Well, not "good" as in "agreeable," but "good" as in "logical and understandable": Pokémon was no longer as profitable for Cartoon Network as some of their other shows. That may have been deliberate though, as the show kept getting moved to earlier and earlier timeslots, in which case they didn't let Pokémon slip away. They were trying to kill it off for months, if not years, so that they culd blame low viewership as a reason to take it off. (This is a pretty regular practice with TV channels and shows they don't want but are proving popular. Most notoriously, this happened with Fox and Futurama and Family Guy--I didn't like the latter much, but there's no denying the show's popularity and profitability.)
There is also My Hero Academia, currently the highest profile anime to not have ever been broadcast in the United States (not counting Gin Tama, which would be a hard sell to the general public due to its use of Japanese cultural references).
If you look at the American companies selling merchandise to kids, you'll see they really struggle with it too. All in all, it's difficult to figure out how to sell to North American kids, period. On Mattel's front, Barbie sales are slipping while their Monster High franchise exploded from seemingly out of nowhere. Hasbro is currently relying on its proven past hits, only with new reimaginings (most notably My Little Pony, but G.I. Joe, Littlest Pet Shop, and Transformers have undergone that too, such that fans mark theie history in "generations"). Jakks Pacific is relying solely on licenses from TV shows and video games that have proven themselves. And on the television front, including streaming television, they're losing major ground to YouTube and Twitch. Remember that episode of South Park in which Ike stops watching TV and is fixated solely on PewDiePie? They're pretty on the mark with that. What's going on presently, at least based on my experiences working with small children, is that they are going through a major diversification of interests. That is, any semblance of shared interests and hot new things is vanishing as every child discovers something they're really into and latches on to that, independent of what any of their other classmates are into (though they may tell their friends). It is essentially narrowcasting taken to the next level. Kids have so many choices for entertainment now, far, far more than they used to, that each particular company producing entertainment is getting a smaller share because so many other people are competing for their attention.
I woud pin Yo-kai Watch flopping due to it being steeped in Japanese folklore, way more than the typical western child would reasonably know (which I'm sure is the reason why what western audiences Yo-kai Watch DID get, the largest crowd was college-age gamers, who would be the demographic most likely to enjoy a video game about Japanese folklore). It also had much too heavy of an emphasis on the cute Yo-kai and not enough on the fearsome, powerful ones, marketing that both Pokémon and Digimon would consistently get right. I am certain your theory of franchises that catch on being about saving the world and becoming a master is a major factor, but I think there's something else in line with that too: In all of these franchises, the heroes display feats of overwhelming power against the villains, which to kids is an indicator of heroism and mastery. If you ever watch kids role-play or read heroes-versus-villains stories they write, you'll notice that they mostly set up scenarios in which the villains have hopeless odds against the heroes' might. Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Naruto, and so forth all heavily feature overwhelming heroic force, and the marketing for them show exactly that. (And the same goes for western action franchises, of which there are far too many to list.) Yo-kai Watch does not show off any of that. You are exactly right in that the mundane setting and mundane conflicts the characters get into are a major turnoff for western kids, who are looking for escapism and role models. Also, there's Discovery Family, which, when it was new and known as The Hub, relied mostly on old programming from the 80's and 90's, and to an extent, they still do.
Same with One Piece. That's why it remained on the modern Toonami schedule for at least two years as its ratings dropped to about half of the timeslots right before it and right after it. (That is, about half of the Toonami viewers actually stopped watching Toonami when One Piece came on, then tuned back when it ended.)
Any fandom that can't stand ribs coming from itself deserves to be ribbed by every other fandom. Like the Sonic fans!
According to an interview with Jason DeMarco on the (now defunct) Toonami Faithful Podcast, Hamtaro wound up on the block due to executive demand, not from Viz. Basically, Toonami began functioning essentially as an independent station-within-a-station, with a different crew running the entire block and free to do whatever they wanted, as long as it fell within the content guidelines. When Toonami proved a ratings winner, however, the executives had an increasing hand in Toonami's content. Hamtaro arrived at around the point where they gave themselves the power to insert shows onto Toonami at their whims. As it was followed up with D.I.C.E. and other such shows aimed at a noticeably younger demographic than Toonami's usual fare, it's pretty clear they didn't know what the Toonami audience was (or wanted to forcibly change it) and just saw it as "kids shows from Japan."
No entertainment medium has completely vanished, and I don't think television will either. It may become niche like radio, but it will not completely disappear. After all, stage plays still exist alongside movies and TV programming. While I highly value stumble-upon, I do have to wonder how many people will be willing to simply watch something random and use stumble-upon as a method of doing so. I am one such person, but I know few other people who do. Most other people I know have already established what they like and, if they watch a lot of streaming, will use the service's "Recommended" list (or equivalent) to find some other show to watch. Currently, there isn't such a thing for me though, as they all have cookies to try to guess what shows I would be into, though I have no real preferences--I'm up for anything, and I don't know how to convince those cookies of that. Frankly, I feel people are pigeonholing themselves, but hey, that just means it's easier than ever for me to come across as that person who knows everything and should go onto Jeopardy! (oh yeah, I don't see game shows as having much of a streaming presence, for some reason). Also, Black Clover is there because it's widely expected to have high mainstream appeal. It has many similarities to Bleach in its storytelling, and I suspect that the Toonami people were waiting for something like it to hopefully become the next such show.
Not much advertising gets to them, huh? I suppose we're now in the backlash from the Information Age.
Technically, they have a lot of Pokémon themed on Japanese folklorical creatures and mythology, such as Exeggutor, Dunsparce, Mawile, Bronzong, Musharna, Meowstic, and Turtonator (and yes, I intentionally picked one from each generation to show that they have always been doing it--and Farfetch'd is based on a Japanese idiom, of all things), but the Pokémon localization has done a very good job of keeping these monsters accessible and understandable within their own contexts, and the Pokémon designs themselves are kept quite culturally neutral and can be explained based on universally understood concepts. On the other hand, Yo-kai Watch is tied enough to Japanese culture that without it, the Yo-kai come across as lazily designed, attaching two concepts together without any further thought about it (Hungramps is old man + eating, Pupsicle is dog + ice, etc.), even though they really aren't. It would be like if someone not familiar with American folklore played a video game in which a very tall lumberjack hung out with a blue ox and dismissed it as a lame concept because it requires your familiarity with Paul Bunyan and his pal Babe.
It's like that everywhere. How did KFC take off all over the world when none of its competitors could establish themselves outside of North America (with weird exceptions of Pollo Campero in China and Pioneer Chicken in Indonesia)? Because KFC got there first and took up all of the market demand for American-style fried chicken. Every snack in the form of two chocolate cookies sandwiching a sweet cream filling gets called an Oreo ripoff, even Hydrox despite it preceding Oreos, because Oreo essentially took over the entire field. Every interlocking brick toy gets called a Lego ripoff, as Lego, as a company, succeeded in getting people to synonymize "Lego" with "interlocking brick toy."
Ah, I see. I chalk that up to early installment weirdness. |
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Primus
 Posts: 2801 Location: Toronto |
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IIRC Academia is one of the shows Hulu's preventing a television run of (same with Sailor Moon).
Discovery Family is lower-tier and not actively pursuing many acquisitions (Zak Storm might be the only animated show they've picked up recently). Not as irrelevant as something like Primo TV (still kind of jealous of the 5 people that got to watch the World Trigger dub), but even less relevant than Nicktoons/Boomerang/Disney XD. As far as I know, Discovery Family's continued existence is largely due to contractual obligation. Hasbro's original deal had them on the hook for something like 10 years. Discovery has given up on the channel. They don't seem to commission any notable original programming for it. They purchase some Canadian reality shows and run stuff from their other channels, plus old syndicated movies. Hasbro Studios has checked out and understandably so. When the channel was The Hub, everything they produced was for the channel. Now it's the opposite. Hana Zuki and Chomp Squad are YouTube series. New mainline Transformers will likely never touch the channel again. Preschool Transformers is a toss up. Stretch Armstrong is a Netflix show. It's really just My Little Pony and Littlest Pet Shop now that Blazing Team is over. |
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TheAnimeRevolutionizer
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What's that!??? I can't hear you over these funky beats!!! :V :3
Either my cable was dropped before this but I do remember that Hamtaro was given a spot on Toonami, but it was soon given a timeslot before Toonami to help differentiate its content. Always best cute hamster anime though.
I think that's just society as it is now. With how everyone got a bite of the cynicism pie in the 2000s, how the economy is running for most people these days, what kind of mindset schooling in general has instilled into people, and all sorts of crazy factors, everyone's too busy and scared, or tired to try out anything new. Even I'm guilty of it, no matter what excuse I pull out of my hat. Or spiky anime hair. Or headband. Whatevs :V Something like the turn of the 90s - not in terms of "good old days", but rather turn of the world by the masses with taking revolution into their own hands - I feel is the only thing that will shake things up a bit and get everyone back on their feet, but that too is something that only time will prove. Everyone these days is so down in the dumps and longing for a time that was once rife with potential to make things better for everyone, that it's going to be the person who will push through all the crap and lift everyone up again- And it's not going to be a corporate effort that will see it through.
Tying back into some of my previous posts on this thread, I'd also say that it would have to do with the cultural synchronicity and impact these shows have uniquely as anime overseas (at least in the western world/US). The culture of Japan is different, no doubt, but yet, youths and kids overseas here are able to grasp their concepts just as well, if not, a bit more so and with more influence. A few things to add too: 1) A massive shift of exposure and what influence that brings when it comes to anime. I know I'm talking about back then in the early 2000s and late 1990s, because I'm fairly sure the youth anime fan experience is very different than it was for me, but when you were shown anime in contrast to western made animation, the difference was as visible as night and day. While animation in Japan is all equalized and treated no different than each other regardless of style, here in the States, anime marked its lines boldly from western animation, and believe me, that divide plays a significant part. That sense of individuality and standing out was what made anime anime, even from other action series. It's practically a part of this nation's culture. 2) A sense of maturity and growing up. Shounen and Shoujo do these things best in their storytelling and presentation, and if anything that's how a lot anime fans are made. I love cartoons. I love my old Nicktoons and CN classics that I grew up with as a kid. Thing is, shounen and shoujo anime are rife with how people grow up too, and don't just become heroes themselves, but make themselves to be. It shows the trials and tribulations of growing up. They show how later on in reality, we will eventually be pitted with making hard and unfair decisions and dealing with unfair and seemingly insurmountable situations. They show how growing up really kind of sucks and can be very scary, especially with the threat of death looming at your back. But they also tell us that we grow up, that as humans, there is another tomorrow ahead of us, and we can make ourselves better with every passing day, and that we have to be the heroes we needed. Say, why did Nickelodeon nearly bite a big one and almost turned into another Disney Channel? "By Kids, For Kids". It's why WB Kids was able to beat out even Nick back in those times in profit margin. Doesn't help either that you have a partnership with a comic book company that faced its hardest times prior now, does it? ;3 3) Anime being an underground/off beat thing. Look, I'm not going to lie, anime will always be this. Sure, there are some detriments, but nothing lasts forever, but I'm talking about now. Much like how many of us still hold this true, TV was only the gateway to anime as an anime fan, and especially for younger fans. It's not like sitcoms or reality shows or any of that where they have huge fanbases and the US just keeps pumping them out. Anime is the style that did what it wanted and damn straight it will, even if some evil dictator decided to rule the world and ban it/bastardize it. Anime is the kind of stuff that has stuff in it that's normal to the human spirit, but just shocks your parents, your teachers, your church, your plain as flour community, and it's awesome like that. Sure, in Japan it's practically a normal everyday form of media, big deal so what whatev etc. But here in the States? Where animation is derided as childish garbage you're presumably meant to outgrow and a scapegoat for bad storytelling? It's the rebellion, and it's a lone force against a big empire. Plus, anime has its ties to how it's practically a cornerstone of geek and nerd culture, tying heavily in with the internet too. Honestly, not just for how accessible anime is via streaming, there's a sort of coolness and exclusivity where anime is accessed through streaming and on a computer no less. Even if one day we'll see anime made in the west or the States, you can bet that streaming will be a mandatory key element for success. Even today, Anime is still pretty low key. Even as dying and withering TV is nowadays, no channel I've seen on general antenna has shown anime UPN/local access provider style. As far as I've seen in terms of public awareness, anime is pretty word of mouth and online these days outside of Toonami. I've got a feeling that there's probably a conspiracy going on, but I'll wear my tin foil jumpsuit another day. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Oh, is that why? That actually explains a lot.
Actually, Littlest Pet Shop ended in late 2016 after its fourth season. (I'm one of the few people who watched the 2012 series in detail, so I was pretty disappointed in that.) So I guess Friendship Is Magic is now holding up the channel all by itself, LPS reruns notwithstanding. So it'll be just like when the channel was new. I suspected that Hasbro considered it not really worth running the channel when I saw Transformers shows pop up on other channels. That being said, it does come across as a cheap-to-run channel that doesn't need high viewership to financially sustain itself. Though it didn't help that it had a rough start. The existing cable and satellite providers didn't include The Hub except in their biggest, most expensive packages. I didn't start watching Friendship Is Magic myself until 2014, when DISH Network moved it from its America's Top 200 pack to America's Top 150 (which is what we currently have), though it's never gone past that. I think that's partly the reason why new channels have such a hard time: It's not just because they need to divert eyes from streaming, but the existing channel providers run on a system not very friendly to new faces.
I would definitely attribute the success of Naruto, Bleach, and Dragon Ball Z, contrasted with the failure of One Piece to be profitable on non-streaming means in the west, with the exoticism of anime. One Piece is incredibly western-oriented in its art, physics, and storytelling (comes with the territory when its author has an entire wall of Star Wars merchandise and a Nicki Minaj mask in his office, and loves eating at Taco Bell), and this becomes quite off-putting to many anime fans. Every time I attend a One Piece panel at a convention and they ask who had a hard time getting into the series because of its art style, about half of the attendees will raise their hands. But the point is that Yo-kai Watch has that exoticism--it is about Japanese folklorical creatures, after all--but utterly flopped in the west. Hence, there has to be other reasons for anime's appeal, at least to the elementary-age kids the franchise is targeted towards. And those reasons, I suspect and I explained, are because Yo-kai Watch has no larger-than-life characters kids will attach to as role models. By and large, kids want to be powerful and invincible, or at least feel that way. (It's why Super Sonic has been such an enduring part of the Sonic the Hedgehog games, after all.) Yo-kai Watch does not have much of that, nor does its marketing show any of it. It just shows a weird world populated by weird creatures, which is not enough for your typical American kid to care about. That, and Disney XD, like with The Hub/Discovery Family, is not available in the more popular TV packages, though it did begin in the middle packages, unlike Hub, which began in the absolute largest packages. By the way, Hamtaro WAS eventually moved out of Toonami into its own pre-Toonami slot, but it did begin there, with Toonami trailer and everything. |
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Primus
Posts: 2801 Location: Toronto |
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Hasbro is doing a new Littlest Pet Shop series that'll launch sometime this year. Unlike everything else on their production slate, it's been confirmed for Discovery Family. There's a chance the new Transformers: Rescue Bots winds up on there, but it's probably more than likely another Netflix show. I suspect Transformers Cyberverse (the next mainline series) will be. Maybe if Hasbro has another contractual obligation show like Blazing Team they'll dump it there.
And yes, it was an uphill challenge to launch that channel. It came around just as linear viewership was starting to erode and off the economic recession. It being a rebrand of a channel that was never really competitive (Discovery Kids) would've been tough even if the environment was healthy. It's hard to grow when your channel is in deep cable. These are all problems Universal Kids is now going through, except linear viewership is even worse and the recession has been traded for ad dollars going to the internet. They're also (currently) investing far less into original content than Hasbro was. There were a number of unique issues, though. For whatever reason, Hasbro was in charge of operations of The Hub despite having no prior history in broadcasting. This was a huge issue because it meant they were dealing with the advertisers. Some of the largest advertisers on a children's network are going to be toy companies. None of the other majors wanted to give money to their competitor. Having no history in broadcasting meant Hasbro also had very unrealistic expectations. They had really grand ambitions of being a bigger channel than Cartoon Network within a decade. That may have been possible if they launched the channel in 2000 instead of 2010. Discovery really seemed like an awful company to have partnered with, as evidenced by the fact that once Hasbro gave them controlling interest in the channel, it's deteriorated into nothing. Hasbro spent years and millions trying to build that channel and Discovery torpedoed it all within a season. |
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Gina Szanboti
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Hey now, Moltar hosted it during its first two years. Credit where credit is due and all... 
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DerekL1963
Subscriber Posts: 1119 Location: Puget Sound |
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Yup. And then Sonny Strait was T.O.M. for a year. Steve Blum was the third era host... |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Dangit, I guess that pretty much is a signal for me to complete the Littlest Pet Shop 2012 series's TV Tropes recaps, which I had just left hanging for a while now. (By Season 4, each episode's recaps were reaching as high as roughly 26,000 characters in length and took as long as 6 hours to write, especially since I had to use each episode as a reference and watch it multiple times to catch everything I could. But it was when they did the Game of Thrones parody, which I don't know much about, that made me hesitate and procrastinate.) I actually thought that Hasbro partnered up with Discovery because Discovery DOES have a lot of experience running channels and that they would provide guidance. Hasbro pretty much attempted to do all this on their own? It was mentioned elsewhere on this topic that traditional television is dropping off, but only for certain demographics and not others, though The Hub's intended demographic definitely is one of those dropping-off ones. People didn't abandon stage plays when cinema became popular though, and people didn't abandon cinema when television came around. I doubt television itself will become abandoned, though I believe its role will change. (Television programming, on the other hand, will remain in as high demand as ever.) That being said, the strong presence of TV series like Shimmer and Shine, Paw Patrol, and the enduring appeal of SpongeBob SquarePants leads me to believe that kids do still want to watch TV shows, but there will need to be a very good marketing push to get them to notice it in the first place. This I find odd, as Hasbro has traditionally been very good at marketing the toys and such and seemed to stumble spectacularly with The Hub (but again, I guess it's because the cable and satellite services weren't too kind to it to begin with). One important factor is the parents, and what sort of devices they will allow their kids to entertain themselves with. For that reason, I think there will remain a smaller, but core and important viewership for little kids, and big kids, due to cautious parents not letting their kids have mobile devices until a particular age. |
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TheAnimeRevolutionizer
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In some cases, I can see your point. The former topic I can see why there wasn't a Garou: Mark of the Wolves or Art of Fighting 4 sequel; compared to Street Fighter, Tekken, and King of Fighters, the fighting world of Southtown, USA never stood out too well. I enjoy its 90s action primetime show and martial arts movie feel, but when you have more anime centered, global scale, and even a bit more fleshed out, or somewhat more realistic themes going against it, it feels vanilla. Even Toshinden outdid Fatal Fury in some regard. Still, I do attribute anime having something in common that allows it to have its appeal than just being merely from Japan. Martial arts and sports themes do very well because they too are about development and growth, as well as discipline, learning virtue, and self discovery. Even in the face of MMA and "practical applied martial arts", samurai and ninja serve as the images of spiritually and mentally refined warriors, aspects which are highly revered for their level of attainment and stature as a sound, upright human being. There is a difference in culture, but they are concepts plenty of people can respect and get behind, especially in our globally connected world. Another thing too, around that time and turn of the century, those series were more about being skillful and being well prepared. It wasn't just regulated to anime either; Batman Beyond and Static Shock I can also recall being series that focused more on anime related themes, like learning to use one's powers and adapting to the situation, while Jackie Chan Adventures was also about pulling through with wits and seeing through a situation to the end. While I'm sure that is a kind of heroic force overcoming injustice and evil, it's also showing something to aspire to gain and work hard towards, and that it was something developed than just granted. Even Justice League of the 2000s did this in its own way. As for Yokai Watch not doing so well, I can attribute that to some nasty attempt to duel with Pokemon and out do them. If anything Yokai Watch should have played to its strengths of being about a kid and his yokai friends in his everyday life, instead of being played off as a "Pokemon killer". Yokai Watch I can tell is a bit more mellowed out than Pokemon, which is good. We already have a competitive monster training show, so why not something different? I think that's what hampered Yokai Watch. |
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Huh. That's a very interesting point. Digimon, when it was new, also marketed itself as a Pokémon killer (despite it preceding Pokémon), even going so far as for Fox Kids to move the anime to whatever timeslot Kids' WB! was showing the Pokémon anime, and it managed to work. But the difference may be the opposite approach to Digimon, as an anime, and [i}Yo-kai Watch[/i] as an anime. The Digimon anime is about a bunch of kids, somewhat older than the target demographics (which is a good move--kids gravitate not towards characters their age, but characters older than they are), who are trying to overcome a great evil, and in the process, grow in strength and understanding as they go (which, as you mention, is a common theme in many kids shows that become popular--and indeed, the modern hits Shimmer and Shine and Paw Patrol are like this too, both of them being about rookies in some field, learning through experience how to perform to the best of their abilities). The Yo-kai Watch anime, on the other hand, is closer to a sitcom than an action show. This sort of show can work too, but its marketing cannot be misleading. Viewers have to tune in knowing it will be episodic and the conflicts low-stakes.
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Primus
Posts: 2801 Location: Toronto |
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Discovery does have a lot of experience running channels. Just not successful English ones aimed at kids and their families (Discovery Kids is allegedly successful in Latin America). Oprah's channel came shortly after The Hub launched and apparently that took up all of Discovery's time because it was bleeding tonnes of cash. That left Hasbro without a lot of support from them. In hindsight, I'm not sure that was a smart idea. Children's channels have a lot more of an upside than adult ones when it comes to cable. There are far more points of revenue than just TV ad dollars.
Hasbro usually follows kids. With The Hub, Hasbro was trying to get the kids to follow them. If they had launched the channel earlier (or had Discovery's full support) they may have been able to grow that channel and get it into more households. Instead, they took over the channel space of a largely dead kids net. Of course, if they launched the channel earlier Hasbro probably wouldn't have had the money to dump on it. Hasbro in 2000 wasn't nearly as large as Hasbro in 2010. Hasbro's original shows have largely abandoned television. They produce a substantial amount of shorts for YouTube (Littlest Pet Shop, Hana Zuki, Chomp Squad, My Little Pony) and longer formatted shows for Netflix (Stretch Armstrong, likely a lot more coming). They've also been building out their internal animation studio in Ireland, with the goal of one day being able to launch a new animated theatrical film every year. It's easy to see why. Discovery Family is a dead end. The Blazing Team show I spoke about earlier would often draw 20,000 viewers or less for a new episode. My Little Pony is the channel's most watched series and it's only pulling around 100,000. Transformers: Robots in Disguise aired on Cartoon Network and got an early Saturday morning death slot with limited promotion. It still drew in more viewers than anything Discovery Family runs. Going back to anime, the last part is extremely relevant. Transformers, a franchise that's been around forever, made loads of cash and everybody knows about, can't even manage to get a decent time slot on a mainstream TV channel. Anime stands no chance. The existing kids channels are so big they'd much rather focus on their own shows. |
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EricJ2
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That's pretty much the issue with ALL kids' programming at the moment, not to mention why Yo-Kai Watch and Glitter Force went straight to Netflix: There's literally nowhere for kids' syndication to go anymore. Broadcast was so willing to roll over and say "The afterschool kids are watching their own cult-cable now", afternoon demographics saw there was more money in housewives, and afternoons are now taken over with Judge Judy and Dr. Phil. But cable has corporate overlords, who are more interested in seeing Warner shows run on Cartoon Network and Paramount shows run on Nick, there's no place for an indie-syndie--like, say, 4Kids latest attempt to localize a popular game or girl-anime property--and like Dreamworks toons, any shows in the market now have to find a bed at the Netflix Homeless Shelter. (And hope Adam Sandler and Will Smith don't snore too loud.  )
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Primus
Posts: 2801 Location: Toronto |
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Yo-Kai Watch wasn't straight to Netflix. It continues to air on Disney XD and had some promotional runs on the main Disney channel. Episodes are available on Netflix because you have to be everywhere now.
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leafy sea dragon
Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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100,000? That low? Then again, it is still a premium channel, so perhaps everything is relative. Little reason parents would get Discovery Family, even with a TV-oriented household, when Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon are available, and, at least for the DISH Network (not sure about the other providers), the Disney Channel stopped being a pay-extra channel, so that would be another choice. Friendship Is Magic is available on streaming services too, particularly Netflix, though the numbers have been deceiving since the start, as the show gained its Internet popularity through pirated means. From the perspective of a merchandise company, it must be getting harder to sell physical goods to kids too. Not because they're in less demand (even kids know you can only do so much with a touch screen, and not all parents will let their kids handle expensive mobile devices until certain ages), but because what kids are into has become more varied and more volatile. From what I'm seeing, it's now becoming easier to market western animation to older audiences, or at least to all ages. This was the approach to Teen Titans GO! (a divisive show, but one pulling in good enough numbers for Cartoon Network to keep), and by the looks of things, also the approach to Unikitty! (which also has the benefit of appeal to both genders). |
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