Gephyrophillia | Watch This Space #130

Originally Posted on 06/01/2005 by Jeff Harris

An era that began in the mid-seventies with blocks like Force Five, into the eighties with shows like Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Thundercats, My Little Pony and Friends, Inspector Gadget, and G.I. Joe, the creation of the Disney Afternoon in the mid-80s, and the launch of Fox Kids, UPN Kids, and Kids' WB, will end in January 2006. In another unshocking move, another broadcast outlet concedes defeat to cable television. Kids' WB, the last weekday afternoon block seen on broadcast television, will be limited to Saturday mornings. Though the Saturday block will be expanded by one hour (it'll now be seen from 7 AM to 12 Noon EST), Kids' WB programming will be decreased in total by nine hours. If you're in a household without cable television and don't want to watch educational programming after spending seven hours in school, children's entertainment will be sparse, unless you manage to just watch Saturday morning broadcasting.

So what will the powers that be at The WB put on weekday afternoons? More programming from The WB. That's right, the network that brought you shows like Living With Fran and Beauty and the Geek will be shoveling more of the same on weekday afternoons. Well, almost. The 3 to 5 PM block will consist mostly of off-network acquisitions. What that means is that they're going to fill the former Kids' WB weekday slot with reruns of sitcoms and the like. Garth Ancier, chairman of The WB, promises first-run series by fall 2006, but it'll likely be of the same quality seen on primetime on The WB, mostly suburban-oriented sitcoms and dramas. One would think that they'd put in Smallville on the revamped block, but that'd be foolish. Plus, Smallville comes on daily on ABC Family, as does Gillmore Girls and Seventh Heaven, the WB's three highest-rated shows.

To put it even plainly, The WB has basically given up on the Kids' WB. Yes, I did mention that there is an extra hour on the Saturday lineup, but that'll either be dedicated to more Pokemon/Yu-Gi-Oh reruns or E/I programming, so it's not really a plus. Kids' WB has put additional pressure on Cartoon Network to keep the valuable advertisers satisfied with the Saturday morning block, but it's obviously a lost cause. See, here's the thing that The WB fails to understand.

When you end a successful broadcast block like Kids' WB (despite showing nothing but reruns, Kids' WB weekday afternoon block was a success for ten years), you expose that you have no confidence in your programming. Sure, The WB is blaming the FCC in the decision to drop the weekday block, but not for the educational guidelines like many suspect, but rather because the FCC now considers self-promotions are indeed commercial time, which it is. I don't know why that would be such a bugaboo since the network has to promote itself anyway, regardless of what's in the timeslot, whether it's reruns of cartoons or reruns of moldy sitcoms. If that decision was really a reason to not program the weekday Kids' WB block, then perhaps they should have just let the affiliates program themselves in the afternoon the way UPN affiliates do.

The WB affiliates wants the network to hold their hands like a little child. They cry when cable television kick their collective butts and want The WB to do something. Instead of dropping the afternoon Kids' WB block altogether like they did, maybe The WB could have offered something other than reruns from Saturdays long ago. Maybe if there was something other than a two-year old rerun of Pokemon followed by a one-year old episode of Xiaolin Showdown ending the day with an episode of Yu-Gi-Oh that aired a couple of weeks ago, then maybe the affiliates wouldn't have complained.

Truth be told, I knew Kids' WB wasn't going to be around forever when they "launched" the Toonami-shelled lineup back in the summer of 2001. By tacking the block onto something that was popular at the time on cable, namely Cartoon Network's then-afternoon Toonami block and airing out-of-order episodes of Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball Z, Scooby-Doo, and The Powerpuff Girls, The WB publicly displayed that they have no confidence in their lineup. The WB, which had become a part of the Turner Broadcasting unit under the direction of network founder Jamie Kellner, continued to "depower" Cartoon Network's afternoon lineups over time, though people continued to watch as the network's carriage increased. To paraphrase a line from New Jack City, The WB put its faith on Kids' WB, and Kids' WB put its faith in 4Kids Entertainment. By filling any open slot with reruns of Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh, that should have shown advertisers that The WB doesn't know what to do with Kids' WB. By the time The WB gave all but the Kids' WB programming department to Cartoon Network, they hoped to duplicate the cabler's success, but it was too late, and the damage was irreversable, thus this week's final decision to drop the weekday block.

Kids' WB was trying to get back into its groove this coming season, even unleashing a comedic action series (Loonatics or whatever it'll end up being called in September) and a pair of Nicktoonsesque shows (Coconut Fred and Johnny Test) as well as having confidence in shows like Xiaolin Showdown and The Batman, which is actually getting better. By ending the weekday block, The WB will run into similar problems that ended Fox Kids a few years back. They can't promote their block so much on their own network anymore, so how will audiences know it's on? The weekday block is pivotal to a success of a microblock like Kids' WB. The death of the Fox Kids weekday block killed the Saturday morning block. I'm not saying that Kids' WB will follow Fox Kids' ten-year ride, but they're certainly setting themselves up for a big collapse, especially putting a lot of confidence in Cartoon Network, an outlet Kids' WB blamed for the end of the weekday block, in maintaining Kids' WB advertisers and audiences.

It's like Julius Caesar handing a knife to Brutus himself.

*end transmission*

Jeff Harris,
Webmaster/EiC/Lead Writer, The X Bridge
June 1, 2005