I see quite a few complaints about action being on too late or that it's not fair that anime fans have to wait through King of the Hill, Family Guy and The Boondocks for their anime fix.
So what if the tables were turned?
Say anime gets 9PM-12AM and comedy get 12AM-6AM.
Would you want that?
People seem to be under the impression that 10PM is a better slot than Midnight on a Saturday and given all the competition from movies in theaters and sporting events, I don't think 10PM is a better slot to premiere anime than Midnight but the 11 hour might be.
Perhaps a more reasonable suggestion would be anime gets 9PM-12AM, comedy gets 12AM-3AM and anime gets 3AM-6AM for reruns and encores. But I get the feeling most anime viewers don't want to have 2-3 hours of comedy in the middle of their action block unless the only thing airing later is encores. Although, maybe not many action viewers would mind if it was actiony comedy and The Boondocks for the comedy break.
For ratings purposes all anime Saturday isn't feasible. They need to give comedy a few hours to draw in casual viewers along with the hardcore viewers already tuning in for the anime. For the longest time they've used the first hours draw those viewers in but maybe it would work better to give comedy the middle. I suggest that because ratings on Saturday tend to ramp up at the beginning and taper off after Bleach. So say they have shows leading up to Bleach followed by a new show boosted by Bleach then The Boondocks and other actiony comedies bring up the middle of the night and should actually improve the ratings of the anime airing both before it and after it.
Having anime premieres earlier would be nice for those of us who already tune in for them but might prefer to watch them earlier.
However, I caution that the ratings of those premieres before 12AM would likely be worse because of the greater amount of competition. So would that be worth the risk? They could potentially grow larger audiences in that time frame considering ThunderCats does great with 18+ on Friday nights at 8:30PM. Just about as well as Bleach does at midnight on Saturdays. They'd also be getting a boost from the comedy block in the middle.
I'm also certain the total viewer ratings for those anime would sky rocket if they were airing earlier at night but that's not exactly a selling point when they mostly want 18-34 viewers tuning in.
That said, if you don't want to have part of the action block after a comedy break then would you be prefer an earlier action block that's half the size or the later action block as it is? Personally I'd be fine with a split if it meant more action animation could air. Because once again no comedy on Saturday just doesn't seem feasiable now. Not with the current ratings expectations. But I think they could actually improve their current Saturday night ratings average with a split block. If things continue as they are, I wouldn't be surprised to see 1.5-2 Hours around 2AM returning to comedy splitting the action block anyway. That would likely get better ratings than the split block I'm suggesting right now since they'd have mainstream comedy up front and a little bit of it in the middle to boost the anime with low ratings after 2AM. But I'd rather see them try action up front at least once.
Any thoughts?
HELPeR for the TOONAMI, Mobile Suit Gundam, Dragon Ball Z, Harvey Birdman and Perfect Hair Forever boards. Feel free to ask me anything on those topics.
sketch only puts the arrogant whiney punks in their place... sort of like batman, except on the {AS} boards - THECZAROFGNAR
Sketch, should we make sure it's imprinted on your grave stone "He felt very strongly that Bleach belonged on Toonami!" - .hack-SIGN_John
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