Gephyrophillia #234

Originally Posted on 03/26/2011 by Jeff Harris

The first step in creating anything is understanding your audience.

This is something I've learned many years ago in Mass Communications 101. Yeah, the rules have changed as technologies advanced and media has evolved beyond print, radio, and television, but the first step in creating new media productions is understanding your audience. It's not complicated, It's not hard. If you understand who your audience is, what your audience wants, and how your audience reacts to your programming, then you will not only be successful, you might actually create a larger audience.

When you don't understand your audience, you're left scrambling trying to reach a new market that isn't really interested in what you're offering while alienating the audience that has, more or less, keep you in business.

Look at how Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network treat their audiences. Nick largely embraces a tradition that transcends generations. After all, today's Nickelodeon audience is the children of the very first Nickelodeon generation. Parents who watched Nickelodeon back in the day will stay loyal to the channel, much like how fans of Disney films and TV shows are loyal to the Disney brand, particularly their channels. Nick continues to adhere to pretty much the same mission statement they have delivered since the 1984 "relaunch," and providing the same kind of programming their audiences have watched for almost three decades. At times, they fill up their entire lineups with reruns of two or three shows in the prime-viewing timeslots. Lesser channels that try the same strategy tend to fail.

Cartoon Network 2011 is an entirely different beast than Cartoon Network 2001, and the audiences that have witnessed both will attest to that fact. Unlike Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, Cartoon Network is still largely in their first generation of viewers. Though it was launched in 1992, Cartoon Network's market growth was slowed to a crawl. Some markets still don't have the channel on their lineups, and Dish Network and Sky Angel doesn't carry the network on their Family Tier of programming. So, you'd think they'd try to keep the audiences they've struggled to attract, right? Well, you'd be wrong to a point.

Cartoon Network scrubbed out most of their older programming by 2003 in favor of newer productions and foreign acquisitions. Ridding standards like Looney Tunes, The Flintstones, the Turner library of cartoons, and all non-Tom and Jerry/Scooby-Doo Hanna-Barbera cartoons may have brought in a few younger viewers, but it alienated many older viewers in the process. This is problematic, especially in households with older parents and younger kids. If you don't attract those older audiences, they're not going to leave the television on something they don't want to watch. Part of the reason Nickelodeon's ratings are so strong (and this is something you won't read on many places) is because more often than not, the TV set is left on Nick's slot because of the Nick at Nite programming block, which has programming aimed towards families and older members of the household.

Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, which airs nightly from 9 PM to 6 AM E/P, only attracts a select demographic, and it's males 18-34. That's who they want watching the blockwork (blockwork: n. a programming block classified as a full network despite airing fewer than 168 hours a week). Audiences above that demo are welcome, but they're not interested in watching Adult Swim nor Cartoon Network. If you're outside of the demographic, chances are you're not watching Adult Swim, and you're not really watching Cartoon Network.

That is a problem, whether Cartoon Network acknowledges it or not.

Even back in 1991 when they were pitching the channel to cable operators, just as many adults watch cartoons as kids, maybe even more. The highest-rated non-sports, non-reality series on cable television is Nickelodeon's Spongebob Squarepants which attracts both kid viewers and adults. That series didn't become a hit overnight. It took time to cultivate. They kept the series at a consistant time-slot for years, not changing it every two or three months. Audiences were slow to grow, but they eventually stayed. Once the audience came, so did merchandisers willing to cash in on something big.

Cartoon Network usually does this backwards, looking for or making a licensing deal and then creating a series to go with it. Ben 10 has become the standard for merchandising deals beyond t-shirts for skinny people, just as Powerpuff Girls before it. Cartoon Network would rather have a product than a show. Nickelodeon would rather have a show than a product because they realize if you have confidence in a series, the merchandising will follow, and that's what makes them the king.

You ever notice how there has been textbooks about how Nickelodeon has created the model of success? They've done everything to create an audience, keep an audience, and make a successful generational transition in the process. They're atop the cable landscape because they're the very model of success, and I have to respect Nick for that alone. Cartoon Network may be in a rush to try to grab some of that audience, but they're failing largely because they're not being themselves and failing to retain the audience they actually have. Cartoon Network's audience is going away from them because the people in charge of the network don't know who they are and refuse to take the time to get to know them. Instead of knowing the audience, the powers-that-be are largely thinking outside of programming and going on what makes them more money. Nothing wrong with that, but they're failing to realize you attract more flies with honey than bullcrap, and the audience that remains are just tired of the bullcrap they've been pulling lately.

Cartoon Network isn't above absolution.

They just have to reach that point, actually acknowledge what isn't working, move away from that type of programming, work on the type of programming that does work, and reconnect with the audience. It's not going to be an overnight session, mind you, but in time, it would be a fruitful place to at least do that much.

Who knows? Maybe someone would put the rise and fall and rise of Cartoon Network in a Mass Communications textbook one day?

Keep creating.

Jeff Harris,
Creator/Webmaster, The X Bridge.