I know live-action on a network called the Cartoon Network rubs some people the wrong way. But, it's just more of the ratings grab we have seen from almost all the cable networks. In this case Variety suggests it's the rare case of network attempting to attract an older audience (older boys and teens):
Further milking and aging the "Ben 10" franchise into teen territory, Cartoon Network has churned out a second live-action movie infused with a slick comicbook feel while at times feeling more like product placement for cars and motorcycles than a movie. Still, "Ben 10: Alien Swarm" has upped "Ben 10's" game in terms of visual effects, and it races along briskly enough that it should connect with the older boy/younger-teen audience that the Turner-owned channel is cultivating (actually, pandering to) with a slew of live-action reality shows. Read the whole review on Variety.
Ben 10: Alien Swarm premieres Wednesday, November 25 at 7pm.
You know how Toon could pick up older audiences? Develop and acquire animated properties older boys and teens would be drawn to. They used to have a daily (later weekly) block that did such a thing. It was called Toonami. They cancelled it last year. People still miss it. They could tap into the audience that aren’t drawn to Nick’s sitcoms and Disney’s perky girl-driven series and movies easily by doing just that, but they don’t.
And given just about every live-action project not based on an animated property (as Ben 10 is) Toon has launched in the past year has largely been a bust (even the so-called successes Dude, What Would Happen and Destroy Build Destroy aren’t strong performers), one wonders how Tower Prep will be received by an audience that largely doesn’t want live-action in their Cartoon Network.
Doesn’t Cartoon Network have adult swim?
Yes, but they want to increase the average age for those watching Cartoon Network which is on a much bigger portion of the day than Adult Swim.
I don’t mind live action on the network AS LONG AS IT HAS A CARTOON to tie with it. Ben 10 Alien Swarm, is connected slightly to Ben 10 Alien… force I think it is.
The live action Scooby Doo movies they had last month obvious scooby doo.
What the network doesn’t realize that live action with some sort of cartoon background WORK. The crappy shows they currently have on their CN real line up don’t work.
Well, they had the older viewers when they had ‘Justice League Unlimited’. when they stop airing that, I personally had no interest in EVER watching cartoon network again. Ben10. really?
How does Clone Wars do with older viewers? I would imagine that it does pretty good.
I haven’t seen much demographic data on Clone Wars this year, but what I have seen shows that there’s about an even split between boys 6-11 and boys 9-14 (there’s some overlap between those two demos though).
One reasons why CN evenually did away with Toonami is that most of the shows that did well weren’t owned by CN in someway. While they will put other productions on the air, the default is to feature in-house produced stuff.
Robert, why don’t they just do Adult Swim earlier? The Venture Brothers would pull in adults like crazy. Locally (Central Standard Time), it doesn’t hear until 11 pm on Sunday. They could barely bury it deeper if they tried.
I think their goal with Cartoon Network is to improve the 2-14 range especially at the top end of the range. Adult Swim is targeted at a different market (and doing very well with it). Adult Swim had 10 of the top 50 programs with adults 18-49 on ad-supported cable for the week ending 11/15, and 18 of the top 50 programs with Adults 18-34. Sure, Family Guy reruns were most of them, but Robot Chicken, Titan Maximum and even Venture Bros at midnight performed well w/18-34 crowd.
i wish adult swim was on earlier
venture bros doesn’t come on til like 1 or 2 in the morning for AZ
with the whole hour later and another hour becuase the shows go up an hour with all the daylight savings which we don’t do
i could just get satellite and have everything on 3 hours befor they should be
Daniel, I’m not sure you would be able to find an east coast feed of CN even on satellite, unless things have really improved since I last had satellite. Back then, you could get east/west coast feeds of the big broadcast nets, and HBO. That was pretty much it.
Completely separate topic, and I’m not sure how long it will last as more people watch HD, but these days on Comcast (though I’m sure it’s the same for satellite) the HD feeds of a lot of the cable networks are the East Coast feeds (USA, TNT, TBS, AMC, Syfy). It’s not true for all cable nets though — FXHD is the West Coast feed, and though the east coast feed for HBO is available, only the west coast feed is in HD. Off the top of my head I don’t think Cartoon Network/Adult Swim are on my HD lineup yet.
I suspect TNT, TBS, USA, etc are the east coast feeds in HD because those networks probably only have 1 HD feed. Sooner or later that’s bound to go away as advertisers start bitching about The Closer and Burn Notice being on at 6pm for HD customers in California. (edit: though because of how these networks re-run programs, in a lot of cases shows still wind up airing in their correct west coast primetime time slots, too, even with the east coast feed)
BTW, these days it is very hard to get the east coast broadcast network feeds via satellite if you are on the west coast. It used to be an easy thing to do, but not anymore.
This is half sincere, half diss.
They should play Robot Chicken during the day. It’s an absolutely terrible show by grown-up standards, but it’s the type of thing 13-year-old me would go crazy for.
I think the move to live action is due to the success of stuff like Hannah Montana and iCarly, Cartoon Network have been successful with boys and so if they find a show that hits in the same way then they will rake in big money as that demo isn’t as well catered for.
CN Real was a failure so I think they’ll be concentrating on live action scripted fare, Scooby Doo! was successful and most likely so will Ben 10.
I stopped watching CN including Adult Swim when they stopped putting new anime programs on.
Being too cheap can backfire on you sometimes.
The Toonami brand though is pretty much alive in CN’s other markets overseas especially that there’s a high demand for japanese animated series, and other teen-oriented programming (Competing against Sony’s anime channel behemoth Animax and traditional competitors Nick and Disney Channel).
Although the ratio of live action programs to their traditional cartoon programming is increasing on those markets as well giving us a sure clue of Cartoon Network’s expansion plans to reach a more profitable demo and stay connected with old-time viewers that are very well in their teens. I doubt though that they’ll compromise themselves being “Cartoon Network”.
Cn should just put Dragonball Z on again. If they are so concerned with ratings, DBZ has proven itself as a powerhouse.
Actually, may telecasts of Dragonball Z were the highest viewed programs on the network, ever. (until it was beaten by the 2006 1st Live-Action Ben10 movie, which in turn was beaten by the Live-Action Scooby-Doo movie. 3rd place isn’t too bad.)
Does CN still show new seasons of Chowder? That the only animated show on CN I enjoyed after Foster’s Home was cancelled.
Chowder still has some unaired episodes in the can, but the show has already shut down production and most of the animation staff is now working on a show called “Fish Hooks” for the Disney Channel.
http://tvbythenumbers.com/2009/10/30/production-begins-on-disney-channels-fish-hooks/32129
I’m sad Chowder is ending, but it’ll be interesting to see a new show from such talented people.
Also, Adventure Time will be coming out on CN in a couple months. I’m really excited about it.