Toons of the 2000s: The End of Broadcast Kids TV

[TMC]

http://blog.toonzone.net/blogs/119/t...s-tv---part-1/

If I turn on my local CW station at 7am, I'll see their local news. If I turn on the local MyNetwork station at 3pm, I'll see Maury telling some poor soul he's the father. If I turn on the local Fox-owned station at 10am on a Saturday, I get to see an infomercial. In 2000, all three of these stations were airing cartoons at the times I just mentioned; today, none of them do. Ten years ago, three networks were offering new programming on Saturday mornings; today, there is only a single provider. What was unthinkable a generation ago has come to pass - if ad-supported broadcast kids' TV is not completely dead, then it is certainly on its deathbed.

To be fair, the end of broadcast kids' TV is not a new phenomenon. Its roots can be traced back to 1992, the year NBC decided to drop cartoons in favor of news and teen-oriented shows. By 1999, the marketplace was in clear decline. Syndication was all but dead, and CBS had decided to drop out as well. Most of the big networks were now airing educational-oriented programming for the majority of their Saturday morning schedules, as a result of the FCC's new E/I regulations.

Still, the differences are quite stark. Here's a list of networks offering kids' programming in 2000:

Fox Kids (new series)
Kids' WB (new series)
ABC/Disney (new series, E/I focus)
NBC (TNBC, E/I)
CBS/Nick Jr. (E/I)

And here's what you can see today:

The CW4Kids (new series)
ABC/Disney (E/I, Disney repeats)
NBC/Qubo (E/I)
CBS/Cookie Jar (E/I)

You'll note that, save for ABC, none of the networks or programming blocks that existed in 2000 exist in 2009. Only CW (the merged WB and UPN) is providing a traditional, non-E/I Saturday Morning lineup, and that's leased to 4Kids. ABC is almost entirely Disney Channel repeats badged as E/I, with the exception of Power Rangers - which many affiliates simply don't show and is concluding at the end of the year anyway. CBS and NBC are all E/I shows aimed predominantly at preschoolers, and those are sandwiched around news. You'll also note the absence of Fox, which used to air Fox Kids and then 4Kids before ending that contract earlier this year. It's out of the business, and its replacement by infomercial advertising speaks volumes.

This is just counting the wreckage of Saturday mornings. Weekdays are even worse - no network airs kids' programming Monday through Friday. The kids' programming that does air is usually E/I and sandwiched at weird hours of the day. So how has a once thriving landscape turned into a desert?

[waichingliu81]

2000s- by far the WORST decade for cartoons ever, and i just despair at the next 10 years after 2010.

when the likes of hanna barbera went bust, and TV companies like fox concerntrated on making animated shows for adults and less quality shows for kids, that was when the rot set in afterwards.

i don't like many of the animated shows like family guy, american dad, south park and i don't like the cartoons aimed at kids today.

thank goodness for you tube though. better than sitting through the crap that passes as cartoons these days.

[tv star collector]

It's a different era that we're living in today ... not only from my own childhood (the late fifties and early sixties), but from merely a decade or two
ago. Blame it on Youtube and DVDs, where cartoons are readily available
anytime, any day of the week. Saturday morning TV, as my generation
knew it (and even the next generation after that) is no more. Sad to say, it
has gone the way of the drive-in movie theatre and the phonograph record.
As more and more people are reading online, I expect books and magazines
(perhaps even--shudder--newspapers) to be the next to go.

"Television will never replace the newspaper. Did you ever try to swat a fly
with a TV set?" -- Author unknown

[waichingliu81]

[

QUOTE=tv star collector]It's a different era that we're living in today ... not only from my own childhood (the late fifties and early sixties), but from merely a decade or two ago.

i agree. as the years move on, so does popular entertainment itself.

Blame it on Youtube and DVDs, where cartoons are readily available
anytime, any day of the week. Saturday morning TV, as my generation
knew it (and even the next generation after that) is no more.

well for me, i'm glad to be watching them on you tube because here in the UK they hardly show those classics on satalite, cable tv anyway. it's all either poor quality cartoons or disney hanna montana, high school musical kiddie teenybopper shows. for me you tube is a blessing as users upload those animated classics, as opposed to it being something i loathe.

Sad to say, it has gone the way of the drive-in movie theatre and the phonograph record. As more and more people are reading online, I expect books and magazines (perhaps even--shudder--newspapers) to be the next to go.

[/QUOTE]

popular entertainment , 99/9% of it today is pure dross really, but of course we do have the option not to watch it- otherwise, it's as if those shows are something we are forced to watch and must watch. which is a horrifying prospect in itself.

[MrCleveland]

Coming from the last generation of SatAM cartooners...here's what I saw....

1992-3...NBC Decides to abandon SatAM Cartoons, and if it wasn't for "Garfield and Friends"...SatAM Cartoons would be gone (IMO-This show was one of the few SatAM Cartoons that had strong viewership).

1996-7...The FCC butts-in and we wind-up with E/I Shows. That's fine and all, but have them on PBS!

Other things were...cable TV. But since Cable TV now sold-out like Broadcast TV...there's nothing!

There was also cartoons on Sundays (I remember watching "Tom and Jerry" on Sundays) and Weekday Cartoons...but E/I had to butt-in!