Posted on 12/07/2003 3:49:07 PM PST by paltz
The Disappearance of Saturday Morning Saturday morning no longer means kids in front of TV sets across the country, glued to the latest in hip cartoons. Why? Gerard Raiti investigates the death of an era.
April 30, 2003
By Gerard RaitiA once seemingly inseparable partnership between children and Saturday morning cartoons is now a thing of the past.
In a time not so long ago, Saturday mornings were indicative of one and only one pastime for children — watching cartoons. Throughout the '70s and '80s, the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC dominated the Saturday morning airwaves by inundating children with cartoons. Cartoons on these networks used to earn ratings of more than 20 million viewers. Today, network Saturday morning cartoons only exist on ABC Kids, FOX Kids and Kids’ WB!, the latter two networks either did not exist or did not air cartoons two decades ago. Current successful cartoons on FOX Kids or Kids’ WB! can garner a mere two million viewers. That statistic does not even take into consideration that the population of children in the U.S. has increased by approximately ten percent over the last 20 years.
Due to this precipice in viewers, network cartoons are left struggling to make money while advertisers remain befuddled without a mainstream channel to promote new toys and products to children. Why have children stopped tuning in on Saturday mornings to network cartoons and what are the ramifications of this change?
Six key factors have led to children watching less Saturday morning cartoons: more recreational sports, the introduction of cable and satellite TV, the Internet and video games, a poorer quality of animation, and a greater emphasis on family time. These factors are rather self-explanatory with the exception of the latter: the divorce rate of Americans now stands at 49 percent, and time on the weekends has become more precious for children as many commute between parents’ houses.
For parents who only have limited access to their children due to either divorce or career advancement, plopping them down in front of the television for five hours on a Saturday morning is no longer a viable option. Among most parents, divorced or not, there is a new emphasis on "quality" time. Consequently, taking one’s children to the theater, mall, museum, event, zoo or beach on the weekend is deemed more appropriate to being a "good" parent, than letting kids sit and watch cartoons. To this effect, American society has changed substantially enough over the last two decades to the point where Saturday morning cartoons are less important to our culture.
According to Linda Simensky of Cartoon Network, Saturday morning animation has always been the backwater of programming for network broadcasters. Courtesy of Cartoon Network.
The Biggest Change of All Today, cartoons are no longer on the major three networks that dominated the preceding decades. Although ABC technically still airs Saturday morning cartoons, its relationship with Disney distinguishes it from ABC’s past programming during the ‘70s and ‘80s. When NBC and CBS began reducing their children’s programming on Saturdays in 1988-1990, FOX jumped aboard the bandwagon and laid the cornerstone for its FOX Kids Network. NBC chose to delve into live-action teen entertainment, hallmarked by Saved by the Bell. Presently, NBC is in partnership with Discovery Kids; a Saturday edition of Today either precedes or follows Discovery Kids. CBS initially chose to replace its cartoons with news from local affiliates and now airs a national morning show, which is either preceded or followed by children’s content from Nick Jr. Disney acquired ABC, so their relationship has stayed relatively constant over the decades and still continues to air its One Saturday Morning, recently renamed ABC Kids. Linda Simensky, vice president of original programming at Cartoon Network, feels that, “Children’s television was never the strength of broadcasters to begin with. There were some good shows in there, but kids’ TV was the department where executives at the network would start their nephews out in. [Kids’ TV] was never the primary goal of a network.” Children’s entertainment on Saturday mornings is currently such a liability that local affiliates in markets such as Baltimore choose to air local news in lieu of Discovery Kids, Nick Jr., and ABC Kids. PAGE 2
The guy with the fig shoes who always fell down.
Kids commercials are not what they used to be.
I never see anything like a character looking like they are wearing blackface after smoking an exploding cigar, much less the WW2 era depictions of JapaneseI managed to grab a copy of one of Bug's WWII efforts, involving him handing out grenade laden ice cream bars to Japanese soldiers on an island, off of Kazaa. Ohh mannnn....hehehhehehehe.
-Eric
Conjunction-junction, what's your function?
And who could forget the "I'm just a bill..." civics one?
To this day, when I hear a tax bill, etc., is stalled, a little part of my mind pictures Bill, sitting on the capitol steps, all depressed and sad looking.
I feel as though the lack in creative storylines, coupled with a boom in competition with up and coming new networks, finished off Saturday morning. The three major networks began to pump out the same bland genre of animation with little or no plot, character development, or story. I remember when in 1984 "Dungeons and Dragons" first started appearing Saturday mornings on CBS. I was immediately drawn to the plot and characters even at seven years old. Had the networks made more efforts to develop shows of this caliber, Saturdays may have been ruled by cartoons up to the present day.
Saturday mornings have sucked ever since they took off "Land of the Lost."
Cartoons? The animation sucks and the story lines aren't funny.
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