Any reason Cartoon Network stopped doing primetime premiere blocks for the animated shows?

[Stumpos]

Looking at the premiere patterns, I notice how by March 2019, they were beginning to make a transition to Saturday morning premieres beginning with the premiere of Victor and Valentino.

While they still had the 5, 6, 7 Go! block as the Monday night primetime block at the time, it seemed like Saturday mornings were siphoning more and more shows away from primetime (or they ended before getting the chance to be siphoned into Saturday mornings with Gumball and We Bare Bears) as months passed until by January, every comedy series was on Saturday mornings for premieres.

I do have to ask, why did Cartoon Network decide to stop doing primetime premiere blocks by the end of 2019 and move everything to Saturday mornings (action was on Sunday mornings, but no one cares since there's no advertisement for those)? After 25 years of various primetime premiere blocks, what made them decide to stop? And keep in mind this was before they lost the 5-8 PM blocks to Adult Swim in 2023 so the excuse that they lost hours doesn't work.

 

[JMTV]

And keep in mind this was before they lost the 5-8 PM blocks to Adult Swim in 2023 so the excuse that they lost hours doesn't work.

Adult Swim is always doing better in primetime than Cartoon Network anyway, regardless if they get the 5-8 PM hours or not.

I think the reason why CN stopped doing premiere primetime blocks anymore is because they weren't hottest thing for kids anymore compare to 20 years ago. The days of kids watch new episodes on cable TV in primetime is pretty much dead. Since streaming became a thing, there is no point of waiting for a specific time to watch new episodes when I can watch them anytime I want, whenever I want.

 

[Markus Nelis]

Simple. Kids are on streaming now. Remaining people are adults now.

 

[Surreal Kangaroo]

To echo what everyone else already said, but streaming. Kids today don’t even know a life before streaming. Why make a special block when you can watch whatever, whenever.

 

[Stumpos]

If streaming is the reason why primetime blocks aren't a thing on Cartoon Network, why do they even bother premiering anything at all on TV? Why premiere anything on Saturday morning blocks when they could save time and just put everything on Max instead?

 

[Silverstar]

Money.

Cable TV isn't dead yet; studios still rely on linear TV for the ad revenue. Warner Bros. Discovery is particularly reliant on it, since they have so many TV channels now, plus not everyone has Max.

 

[Goldstar!]

If streaming is the reason why primetime blocks aren't a thing on Cartoon Network, why do they even bother premiering anything at all on TV? Why premiere anything on Saturday morning blocks when they could save time and just put everything on Max instead?

Because cable TV is much more profitable than a streaming service due to ad revenue. Not every household has Max or is willing to subscribe to it. Heck, Max isn't even available all over the world. On the other hand, many homes have cable TV and therefore have access to Cartoon Network. Streaming is seen an alternative to television, but it's got a long way to go before it completely replaces television.

 

[Markus Nelis]

Streaming still gets more money overall as millions of people pay to them. I doubt that advertisers are willing to pay channels too much money like back in the day. And streaming is available in a lot of places where population is high that there are tens of millions of people who have subscribed to Max. They get hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

 

[Goldstar!]

Streaming still gets more money overall as millions of people pay to them. I doubt that advertisers are willing to pay channels too much money like back in the day. And streaming is available in a lot of places where population is high that there are tens of millions of people who have subscribed to Max. They get hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Even if that's the case, Max isn't profitable enough to replace Cartoon Network as WB's main hub for animated programming. At least not yet.

That may happen 5 or 10 years from now, assuming that CN will still be around by then and that WB isn't under new ownership by that time.

 

[Markus Nelis]

I didn't say Max will replace CN. I only said that CN isn't going to do programming blocks because kids would rather be on streaming while they won't be spending money on adults that still watch CN. Luckily AS is having programming blocks on the same channel slot.