>Opinions | An Anime Channel: Is It Possible?

Question #3: What's the best way to create a potential anime network be, basic or premium?
Answer: Basic, with variety network-like standards

People want an anime channel to be just like the videos and DVDs they buy. Uncut, unedited, and for some, undubbed. This is an okay dream, but you're going to have to look at the big picture.

To get totally uncut, unedited, and possibly undubbed anime on an anime channel, the channel would have to be either premium or pay-per-view. PPV is completely out of the question because it's limited and you don't have access to it all day and all night, plus, who wants to buy a movie or show they could easily get on video? Get that idea out of your head. A premium channel is good, but it too has drawbacks. A network just can't be all uncut anime. It could, but then there would be an influx of narrowminded idiots that will think just because it's a cartoon means it's for kids and kids only. Plus, a premium network has to have a large subscriber base just to get off the ground, and not many people will pick up a premium anime network all at once. Heck, it might take years for anybody to even pick it up. Look at how long it took cable companies to add Cartoon Network to cable lineups, and there are still areas in the country without CN.

The only way that an anime network would work is if it was a basic cable network, aimed toward all audiences and ad-supported. The anime network wouldn't be run like a Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon because they are kids networks. An anime network would be run like a general entertainment/variety network like USA, TNT, or FX. The owners would have to cater their programming to all viewers, with youth-oriented shows in the mornings, tween-and-teen-oriented shows in the afternoons, families in the early-primetime hours, and adult audiences (by adult, I don't mean full of sex, bloody violence, and nudity, but rather shows in the vein of the stuff you'll see on NBC and, to an extent, HBO) in the late-primetime and overnight time periods. Each daypart should have their own standards, and not be so limiting. With that formula, I could see no reason why it should be totally uncut (though some shows that would normally be cut on a network like Cartoon Network would, in fact, air relatively untouched). And if you want to see the film or series the way it was originally envisioned, you could always buy it.

That's probably not an answer that people weren't expecting. Here's another!