Promotion of the anime on Cartoon Network

[Moe]

Perhaps I'm missing things because most of what I see of the advertising for Pokemon is during the last half of Beyblade when waiting for it to start airing, but is it just me who gets the impression that Cartoon Network expect Pokemon to get viewers solely on the name alone?

They are still running the same promo that started before the Rival Destinies season started, complete with shots mostly of those first few episodes and presumably will keep doing that through until the season finishes.

I don't quite expect a promo for every individual episode - the Japanese episode promos sometimes reveal way too much about the upcoming episodes - but to update it every month, or rotate through a few promos that actually show different sides of the show - it's hard to imagine anyone deciding to start watching or even return to watching based on the promos shown.

Yet despite this, Pokemon seems to rate solidly, people seem to keep coming back regardless of how poorly Cartoon Network seem to treat it, does it just not matter?

 

[Sweet Veil]

When it comes to TV Ratings, Pokemon rules for CN. Pokemon is probably, perhaps the most popular show on CN, notice I said popular not highly rated. That's really only because of its huge game status as well as the anime being popular in its own right and selling merchandise like hotcakes. Pokemon is a show that was bought, it's a show that CN didn't make or dub, they're simply buying it and airing it. They aren't making as much money from it as they would with their own home grown shows, so they aren't going to give it as good treatment as say, Ben 10 Omniverse or Young Justice, despite how far the former has fallen from grace. So far BW episodes are doing great for CN, the reason they air it so early is to attract viewers early on. They aren't going to give it as much advertisement as a home grown show, no matter how well its done because they don't have much to lose if it fails. If something they made themselves failed, they would be screwed money wise.

 

[YamiiDenryuu]

They've been promoting Pokemon like that for a while now, and it seems to be doing fine, so I guess it's okay. By the way, what sort of ratings does the dub get? I've found a list for the japanese show, but not the dub.

 

[Robo-Floatzel]

When it comes to TV Ratings, Pokemon rules for CN. Pokemon is probably, perhaps the most popular show on CN, notice I said popular not highly rated. That's really only because of its huge game status as well as the anime being popular in its own right and selling merchandise like hotcakes. Pokemon is a show that was bought, it's a show that CN didn't make or dub, they're simply buying it and airing it. They aren't making as much money from it as they would with their own home grown shows, so they aren't going to give it as good treatment as say, Ben 10 Omniverse or Young Justice, despite how far the former has fallen from grace. So far BW episodes are doing great for CN, the reason they air it so early is to attract viewers early on. They aren't going to give it as much advertisement as a home grown show, no matter how well its done because they don't have much to lose if it fails. If something they made themselves failed, they would be screwed money wise.

Outside of that one advertisement, I barely see any advertisements for the show at all, the games and cards, yes, but not the show, this is kind of opposite of how Kids WB did it, and how CN advertised it back when they started airing it in 2004. Cartoon Network doesn't own Pokemon, Nintendo and Game Freak do, CN only has the airing rights to the show, Ben 10 and Young Justice on the other hand are owned by CN (well, DC Comics in YJ's case, but CN and DC are owned by the same parent company, so CN technically owns it), so they get more advertisement and such. Because of this, CN isn't getting much money from the Pokemon anime, Nintendo is.

Though to be honest, the anime was mainly the gateway into the franchise for newer fans in the past, nowadays, the games have become more successful than the anime, so not that's how the new fans are coming in.

They've been promoting Pokemon like that for a while now, and it seems to be doing fine, so I guess it's okay. By the way, what sort of ratings does the dub get? I've found a list for the japanese show, but not the dub.

I heard somewhere on another thread that the anime dub's ratings aren't that high as some of CN's other shows.

 

[YamiiDenryuu]

I heard somewhere on another thread that the anime dub's ratings aren't that high as some of CN's other shows.

Really? Because I heard somewhere on another thread that Pokemon was one of CN's top shows. ._.

 

[SammyW27]

I heard somewhere on another thread that the anime dub's ratings aren't that high as some of CN's other shows.

Really? Because I heard somewhere on another thread that Pokemon was one of CN's top shows. ._.

You heard wrong. They're using it just to fill holes on the schedule during the morning (so it's come down to this :-( )

 

[Hidden Mew]

From what I've read, Pokemon does tend to get some of the better ratings on their Saturday morning blocks and the movies usually do pretty well when they premiere. I don't know if it's one of their top rated shows, but for a show that has been on the air for well over a decade, the ratings are usually pretty decent at least. The main reason why they probably aren't promoting it as much as they could is because Cartoon Network doesn't get as much money from a show like Pokemon as they do from their own shows. It probably helps that the show can still get some decent ratings with limited promos being made for it. Personally, I wouldn't mind individual promos for each new episode or at least updating the one they're using for Rival Destinies since all of those episodes used for clips have already aired, but giving the series some promotion is better than nothing.

 

[ProfOaked]

I won't lie I'd rather they move it to Vortex or Nicktoons. The way CN is now idk it jsut doesn't see,m to work on the channel. Of course this is just my view on it all. It jsut seems CN is shifting gears from when Pokemon was put on for new eps back in fall of 06. I'd think ratings would be better on Vortexx tbh since its not cable and shocking enough some people still don't have cable in 2012.

 

[Sweenix]

Advertising the show isn't the problem here, it's the constant timeslot changes.

When Pokemon went from 9am to 8:30, it actually lost quite a few viewers and it's only starting to get it back, i really wish cartoon network would just keep pokemon in 1 timeslot and just not fiddle with it.

 

[Hidden Mew]

Advertising the show isn't the problem here, it's the constant timeslot changes.

When Pokemon went from 9am to 8:30, it actually lost quite a few viewers and it's only starting to get it back, i really wish cartoon network would just keep pokemon in 1 timeslot and just not fiddle with it.

It's only a half hour earlier. I don't think it would be that problematic for people to wake up a little bit earlier to see the episode. On the other hand, moving premieres from around the middle of DP until I think the start of the Sinnoh League to 7AM was a different story and a much worse choice to make. Even so, they don't move it around that frequently anyway, so I don't think that would be a problem.

 

[Sweenix]

Advertising the show isn't the problem here, it's the constant timeslot changes.

When Pokemon went from 9am to 8:30, it actually lost quite a few viewers and it's only starting to get it back, i really wish cartoon network would just keep pokemon in 1 timeslot and just not fiddle with it.

It's only a half hour earlier. I don't think it would be that problematic for people to wake up a little bit earlier to see the episode. On the other hand, moving premieres from around the middle of DP until I think the start of the Sinnoh League to 7AM was a different story and a much worse choice to make. Even so, they don't move it around that frequently anyway, so I don't think that would be a problem.

I agree, moving the sinnoh series to 7am made no sence, especially seeing as pokemon always won the saturday morning ratings for cartoon network, and i wasn't worried about pokemon moving to 8:30am, but not advertising the move really made no sence.. :|

 

[Hidden Mew]

I agree, moving the sinnoh series to 7am made no sence, especially seeing as pokemon always won the saturday morning ratings for cartoon network, and i wasn't worried about pokemon moving to 8:30am, but not advertising the move really made no sence.. :|

Advertising the new time change would have made more sense, but since it was only a half hour earlier, it probably didn't seem that necessary to Cartoon Network to go that route. Since it's only a half hour earlier, I don't quite see how it would have cost a lot of viewers for the show, at least not for more than a couple of weeks at the most.

 

[GolfDude]

last week, somebody was able to get the ratings for cartoon network's entire schedule.. heres the interesting thing:

Pokemon Reruns that air on Sun-Fri Mornings Average anywhere between 500,000 and 700,000 viewers, and loses a good chunk of viewers from the lead in show before it due to back to School times..
The Saturday New Episodes give CN Ratings of over 1.2 million or higher, and usually outperform everything on CN in the 7-11 am Saturday slots due to Spongebob Spamming from Nick during those hours

This is how Pokemon Fared Ratings Wise 2 WEEKS AGO Compared to the shows airing before and after it:

Monday:
7:30AM Beyblade: Metal Masters = 637,000
8:00AM Pokémon BW: Rival Destinies = 523,000
8:30AM NinjaGo: Masters of Spinjitzu = 381,000

Tuesday:
7:30AM Beyblade: Metal Masters = 704,000
8:00AM Pokémon BW: Rival Destinies = 567,000
8:30AM NinjaGo: Masters of Spinjitzu = 514,000

Weds:
7:30AM Beyblade: Metal Masters = 771,000
8:00AM Pokémon BW: Rival Destinies = 663,000
8:30AM NinjaGo: Masters of Spinjitzu = 577,000

Thurs:
7:30AM Beyblade: Metal Masters = 913,000
8:00AM Pokémon BW: Rival Destinies = 702,000
8:30AM NinjaGo: Masters of Spinjitzu = 630,000

Fri:
7:30AM Beyblade: Metal Masters = 783,000
8:00AM Pokémon BW: Rival Destinies = 628,000
8:30AM NinjaGo: Masters of Spinjitzu = 582,000

Sat (New):
8:00AM Beywheelz: Powered by Beyblade = 1,020,000
8:30AM Pokémon BW: Rival Destinies = 1,284,000
9:00AM Ben 10: Omniverse = 1,615,000

Sun:
8:00AM Beywheelz: Powered by Beyblade = 605,000
8:30AM Pokémon BW: Rival Destinies = 678,000
9:00AM Ben 10: Omniverse = 819,000

 

[TaiChiChasers]

Cartoon Network should make an effort to promote Pokémon more. I would like to see at least a "preview" of the next episode like most channels do (Vortexx, NickToons, etc.). That alone could boost the ratings up since the viewers would want to see that next episode rather than not knowing what's happening next week at all.

 

[GolfDude]

as most of us know, in japan , they have that "next time on pokemon" after every episode.. i dont get why TPCI cant just dub that, each week and give it to CN for commercial usage, CN doesnt have to do a thing, since the episode previews are already part of the episodes, TPCI just chooses not to dub them..

 

[Moe]

Interestingly today Beyblade ended with a preview, in the show before the credits. It's quite a good point of comparison I think because it's also a TV Tokyo show not from Cartoon Network, so comes with the same sort of limitations associated with moving to the US episode lengths. Does anyone watch it enough to know if they have to make cuts to the episodes to be able to do that now?