Should Adult Swim decrease its schedule?

[Daikun]

Back in the early days of Adult Swim, expansion used to be a good thing for the block. Instead of taking forever on weekends only, the block was able to breeze through its premieres when the weekday schedule was put into place. It made sense at the time, considering [AS] was acquiring new shows with more than 50 episodes and a crap load of anime that couldn't fit into a simple three-hour block, two nights a week.

Then the Saturday block came along, and the premieres slipped back into 2002 territory, where virtually all the block's premieres (save for minor exceptions) were on weekends only and weekdays had all the reruns. It was still pretty decent for its time, though, but as the years progressed, weekdays continually showed less use and became more obsolete. It got so bad that action is now gone from the weekdays, and even the comedy has plagued Saturdays by pushing the anime premieres to a time when no one will be up to watch them.

Block expansion has now become a nightmare. The block is now on 50 hours a week, every night of the week, and over 90% of it consists of cancelled shows and reruns that people never liked or bother to watch, hence the decreasing ratings which the guys behind the block have worried about so much. The addition of Fridays didn't help, either -- instead of aiding with premieres like the block's previous expansions, it just brought in more reruns. The fact that the very first night of the new block was a Family Guy marathon was a warning sign. Nowadays, block expansion is making the ratings worse, not better.

I think it's time for Adult Swim to decrease its schedule. It has become too bloated and confusing, and I have a couple of ideas on how to clean it up:

1) Retread to a Saturday-Sunday schedule. Saturdays for action, Sundays for comedy. It'll be nice and consistent and not be the workload of a mess that our current schedule has become.

2) Decrease each night to four hours, and share the premieres. Saturdays will be all-action, Sundays will be all-comedy, and weekdays will be a two-hour split for each genre. Also, the premieres for both action and comedy will be shared throughout the week and not be restricted to just the weekends.

Anyway, do you guys agree that Adult Swim should be decreased? If so, how would you do it?

 

[Sketch]

I'd rather not decrease hours if they could manage to share some time with action on weekdays. But the fact of the matter is CN would waste those hours just as much so it kinda doesn't matter if it's 6-11 targeted than or 18-34 targeted. They may as well let AS have the same hours.

If anything they could push it back to midnight if they're going to keep the same all comedy weekday plan. But then again CN wouldn't use 11-12AM for anything good so I'm hesitant to give my blessing toward them getting those hours.

But honestly they just need a better schedule. They have good shows they could be airing, they simply choose not to.

And the only reason I'd want AS to give up the later overnight hours would be for CN to run classic animation or at least shows they don't play during the daytime. But they'd have no reason to do that. And cutting AS down that much make it part of CN rather than it's own network and I don't think they'll be willing to do that.

 

[Jayngfet]

Maybe fridays are action and we get back the midnight run? And I say if you have that much time use some damn anime.

 

[chdr]

I Wouldn't decrease AS's time, but rather get rid of the repeat and replacing it with more shows. That way, AS gets all their comedies at watchable timeslots, and anime fans get some instance of anime on weekdays.

 

[I.D.Will19??]

Take Adult Swim off Saturdays. Let Adult Swim be strictly comedy.

I would rather see the action cartoons either on an extended Toonami block (with the later hours targeting older demos) or without a block (it can simply air after Toonami).

 

[Antiyonder]

On the note of reruns, why are Adult Swim hesitant to air Space Ghost anyway? I mean it's the first Adult Swim show they had to begin with and Brak originated from that and Cartoon Planet.

 

[Jayngfet]

On the note of reruns, why are Adult Swim hesitant to air Space Ghost anyway? I mean it's the first Adult Swim show they had to begin with and Brak originated from that and Cartoon Planet.

Why does everyone forget toonami?

 

[Antiyonder]

Why does everyone forget toonami?

If your comment doesn't have a thing to do with my quote, then type it without responding to me.

 

[Scirel]

Seriously, I'd rather AS just get rid of saturdays completely, and give the time to toonami so they could have a reborn "midnight run" as well as show older shows.

 

[Jayngfet]

You said brak orignated from it, TOM1 was built by moltar.

If your comment doesn't have a thing to do with my quote, then type it without responding to me.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

That's a tough one. I like the Friday schedule, though it was better for the past few weeks than this week (keep the old people bumps for Friday, it gives the day a different feel), bring anime back to Saturday, start advertizing it, get more adult oriented shows, and keep Sunday as is, I suppose. Monday-Thursday don't really matter to me, but they won't remove them as long as they're making money off of Family Guy's airings then.

Also I agree that they should air Space Ghost more, it is a classic.

 

[Antiyonder]

Also I agree that they should air Space Ghost more, it is a classic.

For the reference, though, how did the show do on it's last run? I mean cause if Adult Swim is willing to rerun old programs at all, I'd think their main player would be a top priority.

On that note, I'd air the edited versions on weekdays, with the uncuts of the longer episodes airing on weekends.

 

[chelydra]

I think you're on the right track here, though I would prefer to see Fridays and Saturdays eliminated since I've often watched the early morning repeats before work. But this only addresses one of problems [as] have been having. They need more and better programs to attract viewers instead of hoping that some folks forget to change the channel after Family Guy. I have a gut feeling that one of those get-rich-quick infomercials would get the same viewership as some of those fifteen-minute comedies.
This new schedule, I like it not. I'll still tape Moribito, and Bleach is now on at a much more convenient time, but everything else I can watch what I want any other time by other means. As for Code Geass, it's OK, but it pales in comparison to Bleach and Moribito (and especially Gurren Lagann ).
I'm looking forward to Superjail and The Drinky Crow Show as well as future seasons of Robot Chicken, Venture Brothers, and Metalocalypes. If [as] can keep getting more shows (comedy and anime) of this caliber, they wouldn't have to worry about ratings.

 

[Draft]

Ratings increased seven-fold on weekdays when comedies care. Adult Swim cares more about ratings than their fans like every network does, but they often renew their series even if it doesn't do very well. While comedy hasn't helped Saturday, it could potentially lure kids who stayed up all night on Saturday to start watching thier series (I was lured into [AS] watching Futurama or Family Guy and then saw a commercial for Robot Chicken, and I was hooked for life).

Friday and Saturday usually get low ratings, cause kids are out doing stuff with their friends, so gettinglower ratings than weekdays is expected. But the sudden drop on Satuday is worrisome. We all know the reason why (No, not anime, Kimbo Slice), and there's nothing [AS] can do but to lure viewers. And what lures viewers? Based on weekday ratings, Comedy. It makes perfect sense. However, the ratings have only gotten worse and more erratic. This is why the schedule keeps changing and etc.

Remember, Adult Swim does care about it's viewers more than most networks, but they are a business, so if a show is underperforming, they'll take it off the air

 

[Beat]

Ratings increased seven-fold on weekdays when comedies came.

And now they're back down to pre-infusion levels. Check this week's weekday ratings.

 

[Draft]

probably that's because summer has ended. When did all comedy start?

 

[Daikun]

probably that's because summer has ended. When did all comedy start?

Spring.

 

[J'onn J'onzz]

For the reference, though, how did the show do on it's last run? I mean cause if Adult Swim is willing to rerun old programs at all, I'd think their main player would be a top priority.

On that note, I'd air the edited versions on weekdays, with the uncuts of the longer episodes airing on weekends.

I don't know how it actually does in the ratings, but it's currently on Fridays at 1:15. Not doing too well to be in that slot, I'd guess.

 

[Pomegranate]

IMVHO, since [AS] is focusing more on comedy than they do action/anime programming nowadays, I think they should leave CN's channel space for good and become a late-night animation block on TBS(Family Guy also airs there as well), while late nights on CN become a block of either:

1. Retro-aged programming(could be great for those who don't have The Boom, like me).

2. Cartoons geared towards families/general audiences rather than just youths just like the old-school CN(that'd also sound good).

or

3. The ressurrection of TMR(would be great for the otakus and action fans who'd want to relive the old glory days of Toonami and [AS] action).

 

[tb4000]

They need to remove themselves from Friday and Saturday night. CN should use Friday night for old school cartoons like from back in the day(old Hanna-Barbera), and Saturday should be Toonami Midnight Run. I'd be happy with that.