Saturday Morning kids blocks news

[Radiogeek500]

Ok gang, got some developments.

CBS/Nick JR have ended their partnership. Nick feels the block is no longer finacially viable. CBS will instead team up with DIC for it's Sat Block.


Kids WB/Cartoon Network also end their sales partnership. Kids WB will be selling the 5 hour block on their own, with Cartoon handling scatter inventory.

Now these news bites are quite a suprise. Given the fact that so much was made about synergy and such with these Saturday Morning blocks, one must wonder what will become for NBC, ABC, and Fox. Aren't the NBC and Fox deals up for renewal soon?


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[Joseph_Gallant]

Re: Saturday Mornings

I get the impression that the broadacst networks don't really want to be in the children's programming business, and that the only reason they are is due to the FCC's "E/I" rules.

I think in the back of their minds, most network executives would love to see the "E/I" rules repealed (or overturned in the courts).

Were the "E/I" rules to be repealed or overturned, I would think the commercial broadcast networks will move quickly to drop children's programming entirely. In the case of ABC, CBS and NBC, they would reduce their Saturday-morning schedules to two hours each (probably 8-10 A.M. in most time zones), where they would air the Saturday editions of their morning shows. They would likely encourage affiliates to launch or expand local Saturday-morning newscasts that would precede (6-8 A.M. local) and follow (10 A.M.-12 Noon local) the network morning shows.

Fox would probably stop feeding programs on Saturday mornings entirely, and maybe encourage affiliates to launch local morning shows which would go head-to-head against the network morning shows. In many cities, local morning shows on Fox stations between 7 and 9 A.M. local on weekdays attract more viewers than any of the network morning shows.

As for the WB, they might likewise stop feeding Saturday-morning programs, or do what they recently did on weekday afternoons: replace children's programming with off-network programming mostly aimed as grownups.

 

[dustintv]

I suppose that going with the cable networks seemed like a good idea to go with the law. Guess it turned out not to be. NBC has only had Discovery Kids on their schedule for a couple years now-Before that, their was that The New Saved By the Bell garbage. I think Fox has gone through some drastic changes as well.

Basically, except for the WB, none of the networks really produce their own shows for Saturday Morning really.

> Ok gang, got some developments.
>
> CBS/Nick JR have ended their partnership. Nick feels the
> block is no longer finacially viable. CBS will instead team
> up with DIC for it's Sat Block.
>
>
> Kids WB/Cartoon Network also end their sales partnership.
> Kids WB will be selling the 5 hour block on their own, with
> Cartoon handling scatter inventory.
>
> Now these news bites are quite a suprise. Given the fact
> that so much was made about synergy and such with these
> Saturday Morning blocks, one must wonder what will become
> for NBC, ABC, and Fox. Aren't the NBC and Fox deals up for
> renewal soon?
>

 

[genXdxerLR]

> Now these news bites are quite a suprise. Given the fact
> that so much was made about synergy and such with these
> Saturday Morning blocks, one must wonder what will become
> for NBC, ABC, and Fox. Aren't the NBC and Fox deals up for
> renewal soon?
>

Methinks it was more about getting E/I programming on the cheap. Since the CBS programming was from Nick, it accomplished two things. First the shows would "pass muster" with the gov'ment as children's programming goes. Second, since Nick was a recognizable brand with kids, they would have a leg up on their competitors.

Seems the old line big three have farmed out Saturday Mornings to their cable partners, and news departments. Not that the critics saw much noteworthy in the old days anyway.

The sad part though is that some of the fun, but mindless cartoons like I grew up on are long past and something to tell my children about, the same way my parents explained Variety Shows (in their prime), and afternoon local American Bandstand-type local dance shows.

 

[Jets885sports]

Endurance, JD Roth, and Nickelodeon's worst move ever!

Actually, as far as what's produced in house, Endurance on NBC might be in house. I saw it on there before I saw it on Discovery Kids. Endurance has to be one of the best children's shows of all time. I know some people might think it's a Survivor ripoff, but it has a little originality to it. Instead of votes, it's a tribal rock/paper/scissors sort of thing that decides the elimination of teams. If Mark Burnett had thought of the teams concept for Survivor, Survivor ratings might be different. However, this show did come from the minds that brought us Moolah Beach, and you know how bad that show tanked. JD Roth is no Jeff Probst, but he's better outside of the "Fun House" than he is in it. Yes, I've followed JD Roth over the years. Let's see... besides these two shows, Roth hosted the syndicated Video Power (which should have been the model for Nick Arcade and which I also have thoughts on), Animal Planet's ZooVenture, and a year or so of the syndicated Pictonary. Give him about another decade or so and I'd put him in the Broadcating Hall of Fame along with Marc Summers, even though Trivia Unwrapped and Couch Potatoes stank on ice.

As far as Nick Arcade, that was PATHETIC! the only thing that made it worth watching was the video challenge (although the only good game was like Sonic The Hedgehog 2) And did anybody ever reach the "Goal" in a round before time was winding up? maybe once or twice but that's it! the producers never let these kids get a chance to play the game! Phil Moore has to be one of the most vanilla game hosts ever! I hope he's living in the basement of his parents' house somewhere because he should never show his face in public again. As far as what they should have did, 1) Nick should have struck a deal with Nintendo and Sega to get better games to play in the video challenge instaed of "Bubble Boy 5" or somethin crappy like that (reminds me of that Gamefly commercial, we've got Nada III!), 2) they should have had a better host, and 3) they shouldn't have had a ridculous (and ridculously hard) endgame.