A few months ago, Belgium cable saw the start of a new channel. The Channel consists of a day viewing (6 to 9) of Cartoon Network and a night viewing (9 to 6) of Turner Classic Movies. What’s interesting about the two networks is that they don’t have commercials and we (the subscribers) don’t have to pay extra money to see it. My question is: how does Cartoon Network ‘work’ in the States? Does it have commercials? If not, how does it make money? I don’t think some lone beneficiary is granting us all these expensive cartoons for free, and I’ll be damned if I understand how else they can stay on the air.
They have commercials in the States. It’s also a cable channel (although it’s part of the “basic” package on many cable systems) which means the cable company has to pay a fee to be able to show the channel.
Having said that, I don’t know how healthy they are from a financial standpoint.
[Mel Brooks as “Yogurt”] Moichandizing! Moichandizing![/Mel Brooks as “Yogurt”]
It can’t have escaped your notice that there’s a LOT of advertising on The Cartoon Network. The old cartoons they show are already paid for (which explains a lot of the Scooby Doo stuff). They make new cartoons, but sell the images to books, lunchboxes, shoes, etc. I know. MilliCal has a few pairs of Power Puff Girls shows, not to mention books and toys. She has Scooby-Doo paraphernalia, too. And then there’s the PowerPuff Girls movie.
Advertising and Merchandizing bring in the Big Bucks. I’m sure they’re not hurting. And that they can afford to fund new cartoons.
Heck, and they’re not the only ones. Even ignoring Disney, look at Nickelodeon. Rugrats and SpongeBob must bring in a mint.
That sounds interesting, CalMeacham. But while merchandising alone may be enough to keep a station afloat, I’ve yet to see the first Belgian kid with even so much as a Powerpuff Girls lunchbox.
Let alone a Dexter’s Lab flame thrower.
Volume.
Also (sorry, third post in a row, but this is important): I don’t know how this works in the States, but you can’t ‘choose’ your cable system in Belgium. Each region has it’s own system. So it’s not like any system would buy a new network to attract more costumers, unless they’re trying to bring about massive migrations. I’m sure the cable company would have to pay some money to be able to broadcast Cartoon Network and TCM, but it can’t be all that much.
Isn’t Belgum a socalist country? It’s possible the government just pays a flat rate to CN for the right to send it to it’s citizens.
Short Guy, just because you don’t see kids now with, say, PowerPuff Girls shoes, doesn’t mean you won’t in the future. Give it a little time.
Even if Cartoon Network is taking an early loss by being broadcast in Belgium (which I doubt), they’re getting a foothold in the market. They won’t bring their big guns to bear to overwhelm your culture until your brain has been sufficiently programmed to like their product.
Just because you can’t choose your cable system (you can’t here, either), they still have an interest in getting good programming, so you subscribe. Not everybody has cable.
Cable companies pay CN, and CN has advertising in the states.
I envy your Turner Classic Movies, which is a premium channel on my system.
Here in the States, Cartoon Network is its own network. They have their own lineup of cartoons (called Cartoon Cartoons), and they also run programs of cartoons released by other companys (like Tom & Jerry, the Warner Brothers gang, and Scooby Doo). And trust me, they’ve got their marketing in full swing over here. Dexter’s Lab and the Powerpuff girls are just their flagships; Johnny Bravo, Samurai Jack and Ed, Edd & Eddy do quite nicely as money horses. They also have their fingers in the adult pot, too; I defy anyone to find a funnier fifteen minutes on TV than Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Carl rules.
Sounds like what <b>Short Guy</b>'s seeing is a hybrid channel, like what our local cable system did in the early Eighties. We had Nickelodeon splitting a dial position with A & E. I’m not sure what the reasoning is; perhaps they were doing some sort of market research as to whether either of these networks were viable as money-making engines.
I remember back in the early 1970’s, when the idea of cable tv was being sold with the proposition that you’d pay a monthly fee, and therefore there’d be no commercials. Mofo’s.
The Cartoon Network is a Turner network, so it and TCM are tied quite closely. It may be that AOL Time Warner (whom Turner never should have merged with) provided the dual channel as it’s own package. Call it the “Turner Channel”*. At least the had the brains not to bundle cartoon network with CNN (insert your own joke here).
*what else is Turner going to show the Dutch? Braves games?
err, the Belgians, I mean.
We’re not a socialist country (if that’s what you mean by ‘socalist’, anyway). In the same vein, we hardly ride around on horse and cart anymore, and we’re really cutting back on the public stoning, too. Now if we can only learn to control the Black Plague, we’ll be on easy street.
How about that, sghoul? Old Europe has not only cable, but capitalism too!
What would really be kewl is if you could convince our government that we should be allowed to buy more of the fine products marketed by FN. You could then use some of that revenue to install indoor toilets and electric lights in your houses.
FWIW, by getting cable you are paying for those channels. Cable companies pay a certain ammount per subscriber to show a channel. For some cable channels that have extremely low overhead (say, by being part of huge media conglomerate who’s already long since made a profit on the vast majority of anything they show, for example) that means they don’t need to air commercials to suppliment their income. Here in the US the cartoon network does show enough recent stuff and original programming that they do need to air commercials (as opposed to the Hanna Barbara and WB cartoons which more than made back their money thirty years ago), while they have a spin off network that just shows the old cartoons that doesn’t have commercials.
Eh, CN has reruns of Yu-Gi-Oh. That show is more a half-hour commercial than even half-hour infomercials can hope to be.
[carl]“Hey Shake-man, wuh choo doin dere in my friggin pool!?”[/carl]