The End of Saturday Morning Cartoons

If you’ve followed the latest viral media you’d know that broadcast television in America just had its first Saturday morning without a cartoon block.

Well, technically if you don’t count cable… or Canada.

Let me clear this up a bit.

You see in American television the “Big Three” networks are NBC, CBS and ABC (YYYYMCA!) yes I know you probably don’t watch them anyway, that’s not the point. These three networks are largely responsible for major programming block decisions for most shows in America. As a result we Canadians get a lot of television from these networks, sometimes directly and sometimes through our own local television stations.

Anyway, they abandoned the format of a Saturday Morning cartoon block back in 2004. The CW was the last network to have such a programing block and that was Vortex which was mostly set up by 4Kids Entertainment. Which, if you know 4Kids, is like saying the last well in town is the one belonging to shady Old Man Johnson who keeps taking a crap in it.

In turn animated television migrated well in cable and online services as these systems of distribution became available. Especially when you consider they weren’t bound by FCC regulations. It was where the money was so that’s where they went. Simple really. In fact, it’s easier than ever to have access to animation through online services and cable on demand networks. In some ways it’s better because observing metrics for a show without it being bound to a programming block means you can observe more growth without time restrictions. At the same time, without a fixed block it also means viewers now have to search for a show and hear about it through social media and promotions rather than simply tune in at a fixed time and make that observation for themselves.

So is it a sad thing? In a sense if one considers that their children and their children’s children will never have that experience. But then I know plenty of adults who are still strong animation aficionados in both modern and classic animation. It’s actually one of the best times to love animation as countless classics are being brought to DVD and revived with retro cable channels and fan communities online.

So, in reality, what we’ve really lost is more of a cocoon stage of animation and what has emerged is much grander than anything we’ve had before.