Fox Gets Out of Saturday Morning Toon Biz

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Fox has announced that it is getting out of the Saturday morning cartoon business, completely.

4Kids, which had been programming Fox's Saturday morning line-up will cease at the end of December, as previously reported, and as a result, beginning in January, the network will scuttle its Saturday am kids fare in exchange for two-hours of network controlled infomercials, and two hours of local affiliate programming. The announcement from Fox puts a final nail in the coffin of speculation that the network was going to go at Saturday cartoons or kids' programming on its own. Fox has said that it will find space for its mandated 2 and 1/2 hours of Eductational/Instructional programming during the week.

The change comes as a result of Fox and 4Kids ending their previous agreement earlier than originally negotiated, on November 9th, rather than September, 2009. The deal between the two saw 4Kids programming Fox’s Saturday morning block under a time-buy agreement, according to Variety, at a cost of $20 million per year. The termination of the agreement between 4Kids and Fox came as a result of an out-of-court settlement after 4Kids sued Fox earlier this year, claiming that the network did not maintain a 90% clearance for its Saturday morning block of shows.

4Kids still programs The CW’s Saturday am block of shows, and will move some of its more popular shows to The CW.

Last October, The CW replaced the Kids WB programming block with 4Kids.
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Haven't watched Fox's Saturday morning block in quite a while, but it's a bit of a shame to see it go.
 
Eh, the glory days of Fox Kids are way in the past. FoxBox/4Kids TV was never that good anyway (with the occasional exception like the somewhat poor Kirby dub and TMNT).

And it only ever ran here in Atlanta for a short time anyway... :x

At least now there's only one Saturday morning block with "4Kids" in the title. But all in all, it kinda sucks that Saturday morning cartoons are just edging closer and closer to death. (Although maybe the fact that I don't watch any aside from Pokémon and Spectacular Spider-Man are blinding me to the way things really are.)
 
Well, I guess now its a good thing that I'm recording some of the Kirby episodes on my DVR. It is still a shame though
 
It occurred to me that I haven't watched Saturday morning cartoons since the late 70s, but this is the end of an era.
 
Well, this sucks =/

I will definitely miss TMNT and Dinosaur King. -sigh- Why do things always have to change? -.-
 
I haven't watched anything on either Fox Kids or Fox Box since Transformers: Robots in Disguise, but this is rather depressing news. It honestly seems to me as if Saturday morning cartoons are going the way of the dinosaur. Such a shame, really. =/
 
Nothing was good on there anyway, I'll choose to remember the old days when I they actually had good shows.
 
Very Sad, but not surprising.

When 4Kids took over the CW Saturday Mornings after KidsWB died this year. I knew it wouldn't be long before FOX would drop their line-up since how is 4Kids going to run two Saturday Morning line-ups.

They couldn't that's why 90% of the shows on FOX's 4KidsTV this fall were re-runs.

I'll always remember the glory days of FOX Kids in the 90's, but with the CW now the lone wolf in Saturday Mornings now it just shows that this is yet another nail in the coffin for the slow and painful death that is Saturday Morning Cartoons.
 
The reason Saturday morning cartoons are dying is because EVERY TIME one comes on the air, some idiot parents' group now complains about it being too violent or some problem, not to mention the "TV MAKES KIDS FAT!" lobby. My guess is the networks decided it wasn't worth the trouble to keep the PC police happy all the time and it's really society's attitudes leading to the slow death of cartoons.

Man, I watched some pretty awesome stuff when I was little... it's a shame the soccer moms are killing everything that was good about being a kid.
 
Yeah, I remember how awesome shows like Batman: The Animated Series was. I marathon the show this summer when I bought all four DVDs and I was thinking serveral times while watching, "MAN. How did they get away with that back then."

The problem was that series help start a short-lived revolution, when the networks actually let the series producers make their series and not worry about the stupid parents groups that ruined so many cartoons back in the 70's.

In the last ten years, through those groups have made a comeback. You can still get the rare good show like the new TMNT series (and that has been in decline recently) or the Spectacular Spider-Man, but those are not the norm anymore.
 
We can blame the soccer moms (or mom in this case) for that stupid E/I rule, but that alone didn't cause the fall of Saturday mornings. 24 hour kids channels as well as the internet can also be blamed.

This news makes me really sad even though I've been hoping for 4Kids demise ever since Pokemon became big. (This has nothing to do with the dub. I just hated the show in general.) It'll be strange knowing there wont be any Fox kids block anymore.
 
The E/I rule wasn't that observed, though. I mean, Winx Club was E/I. Anything as long as you said one fact got that (I remember Histeria being that, and while it did teach historical facts, it was mostly another Animaniacs type show with lots of satire.)
 
Networks still need to show two and half hours of E/I programing a week which is still an annoyance. My local Fox dropped 4Kids TV long ago in favor of nothing but E/I crap. I think if that rule didn't exist Saturday mornings could have held on a little longer.
 
My affiliate just showed back to back episodes of Liberty's Kids. And stuck a bunch of educational shows on at like, 5 in the morning.
 
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