Steven Universe's bad airtime explained

I work in CN's IT department (you dont have to believe me), and I work on CN app layout design along with three others (as a subgroup). I have nothing to do with CN's scheduling and what it works out with Time Warner, but I asked my manager about the odd scheduling and this is what I was told:

Steven Universe is a lore heavy show (or "storydriven" as my boss put it) and therefore lacks "replay value". The network intentionally airs little SU because it's already seen the future seasons of the show and management has already pre-determined which episodes will get high ratings and which ones won't. The townie episodes as of late contribute to the overall story minimally, but don't make sense without prior viewing of previous episodes and understanding of the overall plot. SU's target demographic (10-13) along with the network's (5-13) largely wouldn't be able to comprehend episodes that are townies, boring and connected to the plot. (CN knew this for a while, this is why anime was regulated to Toonami on Saturdays) Therefore, CN airs these usually once a week, without any orders to us (IT, specifically the graphic designer division or the employee who runs the twitter account (he's an SU fan)) to do promos.

However, the network does plan (and did with the Space Arc and New Crystal Gems) to air many promos and online ads targeting SU's unintended older draw (you) to watch on TV or the App as part of their online launch. (Yes, they're looking into live-streaming as well).

So that's the deal. Teen Titans Go and Gumball take up like 50% and 35% of the schedule respectively, because those shows make stand-alone episodes that are enthralling for the demographic. SU's kind of in a snooze period with episodes that are uninteresting. When the cool episodes about lore come, CN stockpiles those eps. (bomb-format) with standard TV promos and usually Peridot twitter take overs.

TL;DR CN ISN'T TRYING TO KILL SU, IT JUST KNOWS WHEN GOOD EPISODES ARE COMING, JUST LIKE YOU.

Then why don't the other shows with stand-alone episodes (WBB, Magiswords, Clarence) get much air time?

TTG is action/comedy-oriented with better marketing and draws a larger demographic. Not sure about the first two, but Clarence was never viewed as a good show. SU's ratings are high, but only during bomb-lore eps.

well clarence is actually done according to the upfront, so that explains that part. dunno about the rest

This is actually believable

yeah, seems odd that someone would fake up such a boring, straightforward explanation

not a very good way to get (you)s, are you sure you understand the purpose of this board, OP?

Hey OP. Tell us when we're getting the next bomb

Do you know exactly why all of CN's shows get burnt off in month long bombs and not get touched again until much much later?

Okay, answer me this, OP.

The adult fans are lukewarm about townie eps because they're just filler and have less and less to do with the plot these days.

The kids, you're saying, don't understand or like the townie eps and the network knows this.

If that's true, why even make the fucking townie eps? If nobody's going to like them, they're rarely going to get replayed and the crew are wasting time and budget, why even produce them in the first place?

Just focus effort on the episodes with higher replay value, or do make some filler but make them stand-alone episodes with the main cast. Wouldn't that make more sense for everybody?

>They aren't being shown because they aren't episodic enough
Fair enough and I suppose that same logic can generally apply to AT and RS. So what's your excuse for the lack of We Bear Bears Uncle Grandpa, Clarence, Sonic Boom, My Knight and Me, Bunnicula, Be Cool Scooby Doo, Wabbit, PPG, and Justice League Action?

>TTG is action/comedy
>TTG
>Action

What OP posted only explains why one show doesn't get aired often. Not why most of their airtime is devoted to one show.

I don't really know, but its soon, I'd say a month, likely a summer period. Again I don't run scheduling but my manager often drops notes about a month prior to change website banners or layouts, make designs, or tell multimedia department to cut up clips for promos and sometime we're selected to make text and on-tv banners for the promos.

I'm not really worried about being found out, cause the managers are older and don't lurk here. Though my co-workers (at least 1 I know) does.

If you want (you)s I can tell you why the Space Arc bombed leaked on accident. That was directly related to us.

Why the fuck don't they air Adventure Time anymore though? I know it's on the way out and it's later episodes are more lore driven, but that doesn't mean you can't air earlier episodes.

I think CN is shooting themselves in the foot, the recent new episodes of Teen Titans Go and all the other programming is tanking so bad in ratings and I don't think overairing it will help that fact

>We are purposely trying to undermine the airing time of one of our best rated episodes so we can create hype as nobody will remember it
And this shit only happens at CN US. Everywhere else in the world CN has a decent scheduling and is one of the most watched channels in cable

>to air many promos and online ads
That's why a non-townie episode like Room for Ruby had 0 ads before its airing

>the App as part of their online launch
That's fantastic. It has worked so well before, like the time when their app showed the entire string of 5 episodes a month before airing.

>If that's true, why even make the fucking townie eps? If nobody's going to like them, they're rarely going to get replayed and the crew are wasting time and budget, why even produce them in the first place?
not OP but my guess is that the majority of the "Townie" episodes made after Season 2 were made before they realized that they were ratings poison

well for Sonic Boom and My Knight & Me it's probably because those are 3rd Party shows and CN hasn't been good in how it handles those for more than a decade, BCSD, Wabbit, and PPG are all failures ratings wise(with Wabbit being shunted off to Boomerang along with Bunnicula), and as for Justice League Action, well it's a WB Animation/DC collaboration it was doomed from the start since Cartoon Network hates both those companies and only associates with either because the higher ups at Time Warner force them too(while not caring enough to make sure CN treats them fairly)

Regardless if this is true or not, people should have a general idea why CN schedules their cartoons the way they currently do.

>If you want (you)s I can tell you why the Space Arc bombed leaked on accident. That was directly related to us.
Please, do tell

I would love to hear this as well.

>91285490
They don't get high ratings, nor does CN have anything (that I'm aware of) scheduled with them. First of all we need to address that SU is a girls-show with a higher aged demo that doesn't watch on premiere nights. So that's a factor itself.

Secondly, TTG and Gumball (i can attest the second) do really well with CN's 7-11 demographic. We Bear Bears is perceived as kinda low key (like the New Looney Toons show) and doesn't have much replay value outside of its premiere period. Uncle Grandpa and Clarence aren't on the line-up. Sonic Boom was never going to be good and If I recall, was part of a in-sync advertisement for new SEGA games. PPG doesn't do well.

Look there are three tiers:
-High ratings show w/ re-run value
-High ratings show w/o re-run value
-Movies
-Low rated shows.
If the show demonstrates that it can draw high ratings (pattern I see is usually higher than 900k nowadays but in general was +1.3 million) it advances to tiers 1 and 2, in which case if its like SU and its tier two, then the network sees zero interest in airing outside of peak episodes that have interesting stuff going on.

Daily Ratings with 5-13 year olds uber alles.

Great. But the lack of airings of SU isn't the only problem with the schedule, it's that nothing is airing besides TTG, Gumball, and I guess Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs.

Granted, this changed somewhat with WBB and the new Ben 10 to be aired but still doesn't justify all the fucking TTG being shoved in our face.

We get it, TTG is CN's precious golden baby. But running it to the ground isn't doing anyone any favors. Nick leaned the hard way that shit doesn't work and only now attempting to remedy it, the last thing I want is CN to repeat their mistakes.

>If that's true, why even make the fucking townie eps?

Why, isn't it obvious friend user?

Sugar has no fucking idea how to write a good story! If she only did the actual story episodes the entire show would be about 20 episodes long. Ergo, she and her staff of storyboard monkeys must churn out episode after tepid episode of pointless garbage to pad out each season.

To be fair, sometimes what they fart out is entertaining. It doesn't have anything to do with anything else, but still. You don't fucking tease an intergalactic smackdown for three fucking seasons. It's horseshit, and no amount of passable episodes makes up for that.

user, can you answer why they're treating Justice League Action (and other DC Nation shows like YJ, GL:TAS, BtB) like utter garbage?

Also I concede that CN's exec department isn't nearly as knowledgeable as they were in the past about shows. This is why legacy programming has been eliminated.

For some time, until about 2007, and Snyder was kinda the start (i wasnt there then, this is just what I was told my co-workers) there was kinda a nepotism thing going on, or a "i know this guy from prior TW programming" thing, so back then the execs understood the shows. Now, I get the feeling they just kinda view shows as 3rd party revenue potential and ratings. Plus the cable companies don't care about quality but want to fix CN (and TV in general) declining viewship by appealing to the LCD while getting ready for livestream launch.

Who is your favorite gem OP?

i've never disliked a SU episode. even the filler is entertaining. i like that i have to wait to really get to the good stuff with the series. a lot of good old anime did it and it makes the really good stuff that much more worth it. i don't think the intent was ever to make a concise, compact masterpiece. it was to make a fully fleshed out world, where parts of that world happened to have loads of crazy shit going on.

see: gravity falls. good, but not fleshed out, so it has a beautiful conciseness to it, but so many questions left unanswered. which is part of the beauty IMO, but nothing about that is inherently better than a slowly building series

Despite skipping over Samurai Jack's new episode this past Saturday, why does it feel like Adult Swim has it's shit together better than CN?

>If you want (you)s I can tell you why the Space Arc bombed leaked on accident. That was directly related to us.

OH BOY STORY TIME.

>well it's a WB Animation/DC collaboration it was doomed
Don't you fucking dare open that old chestnut after years of "Our NEW favorite show" being exactly that.

>Ratings
Fair enough, but then you're stuck again with most the highest rated shows being the "story driven" ones.

I'm no expert on business, but I can recognize when when you can't have your cake and eat it too. UG and Clarence's rating aren't that bad, and could be given more airtime if the network really wanted.

I wish Gravity Falls fleshed out its world and side characters better tbqh, the side characters in that show were more interesting than 90% of SU's side characters

fine i'll give you a (you), but make it good

Because, (and I wish I was a lot closer to SU's crew but they're out of LA and I'm not permitted to get any spoilers unless it pertains to web/app promos) the writers pitch a lot of boring episodes, that are kind of like slices of an overall story already written. They have a quota to fill and they don't want to fire all their ammo. Plus I think they are really dedicated to pushing the SoL episodes, predictably because townies will play a part in the upcoming bombs (I'm speculating largely, I'm not that close). Yes its clumsily written.

That's what they think.

Yeah the problem is that the execs and the programming scheduling crew have a chicken and the egg dispute. Execs and managers think TTG does well because its good. People responsible for broadcasting in the CN division (not time warner, I know two of them) think its because its aired a lot. They're looking for new talent that can replicate TTG.

There's a debate here between whether other shows ratings are bad because they're aired so few, or if they're aired so few because their ratings are bad. I have zero idea, I'm not in that planning office.

...

But Mighty Magiswords is ALSO an action comedy that nets decent ratings and would probably do better if CN actually airs it. It makes no sense that the show has 3 different apps yet is almost never on.

>Sonic Boom was never going to be good
Fuck you, the Boom cartoon is fucking hilarious.

>When the cool episodes about lore come, CN stockpiles those eps. (bomb-format)

>It's absolutely fine to put 5 "cool" episodes in a row during a week, just to have radio silence on that show for months afterwards

>CN isn't trying to kill SU

bumer

The more you post the more I believe you're really part of CN, and how depressing that is.

Being out of touch but desperate to not be eclipsed by the so called "streaming generation" is exactly what it sounds like they're doing.

The best possible advice I can give if you can help it, is not to look at what Netflix is but what it has. Because I sure as hell would watch Voltron if it was CN daily. But it's a "story driven" series, so what do I know

So why aren't other shows like Clarence and WBB being shown? They aren't lore heavy at all and yet aren't seen at all.

Well, it's not all that interesting. Basically it was part of the online launch and app launch (which as I've said, its really at its early stages, CN has been trying to tap (you) guys into an actual market rather than just ignoring you).

As I said, the network knew these space episodes were going to be a big deal so most of the IT department was set up to do an SU thing. Twitter take over, Banners, graphic designs, ect.

In my dept., we were planning on doing a synchronized episode release on the app. We want to reward those who got the app and promise them good broadcasting. Post Jan 30th (i think), each episode from Steven's Dream to the last one, was to air on a weekly basis. All eps were embedded into the app and we were ready to roll. Pretty basic. But this timely release thing was a new gimmick. I think the first ep. of the arc was to be activated (via timer) early, and then the proceeding episodes release with their corresponding timers.

Issue was, the timers weren't set until the first ep premiere, with the timer until Jan having not being initialized ( i think). The dept. isn't very large. So upon uploading, nobody checked to see, cause everyone thought it was fine. But then we found out that the episodes, all of them, were up on the app. Someone found out and quickly stopped it but it was way too late. I also was out on vacation when it happened.

It was pretty disappointing and we made it up with a make-up marathon. Since we knew the SU crew put work into those episodes.

then explain why, up until a few months ago, CN was regularly airing SU blocks both during the week and on weekends like "Lapis' Lament" and "Jasper's Corruption" that grouped together story arcs to solve the very problem you claim the show created

Any news/indication on how long the show will last? Like is SU likely to go past season 5 or 6 or end at 5?

And they did very well in ratings

Because they are.
For all AS shortcomings, it at least feels like they know their audience and try their best to capitalize on it.

No matter what anyone says, that fateful Toonami "prank" proved how much they understand and care about their audience and want to make sure they keep watching.

Does anyone important to SU ever pay us any mind? Like do we influence anything about the show, or the way they choose to do things?

Also, do you have any remotely viable way of proving to us that you're from CN?

I don't understand, the story arcs are usually what they air because they're the high-rating episodes. Even as reruns.
There hasn't been many lately, because they're storing up for a new bomb.

>$5 for a slice of pizza

I thought steven universe took place in america not zimbabwe.

Good episodes of Tumblr Universe don't exist.

I don't work for SU so I wouldn't know.
I kinda wanna post my tag but I don't want my co-workers lurking and catching me. Take me at my word or leave it. What I can tell you is this: a bomb is coming for the summer. Also, SU isn't getting canceled. Its kinda obvious around here when a show is about to cancel, and SU is pretty ahead in its production.

And I'm basing this off of upcoming promos that are noted, not because I know the scheduling or what the SU crew is doing. Everybody is in their own little departments.

That makes sense when a new app comes out and you haven't tested all the bugs

>a bomb is coming for the summer.
>Only 3 more months until a new episode

woopie

Because it actually gives airtime to other stuff, to the point of having a classic block and an anime block.

Sonic Boom was trending on twitter a couple weeks ago when the writers and voice actors did a live tweeting session during an airing of an episode. This was on Boomerang during a Saturday night.

It had potential. CN killed it from the get go by only airing it at 7 AM on Saturday before moving it to Boomerang. Sonic is actually surprisingly popular with younger children and the show is very easy to get into by watching any random episode.

Unless CN gets it shit together, the Mega Man cartoon coming out next year will likely have the same fate.

Summer is already in 2 months

So how can you tell when CN is going to cancel a show

Any estimates of the show's shelf life at this point?

He might mean the informal "summer season" which starts in May when schools let out.

Post just a part of your tag!

>Don't you fucking dare open that old chestnut after years of "Our NEW favorite show" being exactly that.
Teen Titans Go is an exception that proves the rule, only reason it's lasted so long is because it turned out to be both ratings and merchandising gold

What's the digital marketing and social media doing in the IT department? That's some 2008 level shit. No wonder CN is failing.

2 and a half
But yeah, its a healthy work in scheduling

CN isn't headed for a collapse or anything, its just pressure to get up ratings amid TV decline. Shows are in the works to replacing shows that are retiring. Its pretty clear around here that 2007-2008 was by far the dark ages for the network, and when people started leaving who knew much about it. The rebrand came with a whole new crew and new ideas, but without much carry over. Snyder kinda started it, but he by himself wasn't bad. He had to deal with contemporary pressures from the cable company about the popularity at the time of live-action and reality-tv/survivor-style shows. Thats why TDI was imported and live-action programming aimed at slightly older children began.

I have another question

Do y'all get any info on rival shows or channels
Like we need to show this at this time
Or
We need to get the target demograph of this show

The New Crystal Gems was a shit episode, so is Peridot in general.

They wouldn't kill an investment like SU.
No I agree, I think what they're doing doesn't make sense, but that is just the logic behind it. Kinda blame the SU crew though for making episodes that can't stand alone. They're learning and transitioning but they're really not there yet.

Is that why episodes like Last One Out Of Beach City are always aired instead of more plot heavy ones?

If you're really from CN (I'm starting to believe you at this point) thank you for all the info, it's really eye opening and explains a lot of the shit CN has done these past couple of years.

Doesn't excuse it, but at least it explains it

>Kinda blame the SU crew though for making episodes that can't stand alone

The SU crew was the one who said that they'll start doing episodes in "bomb" formats, as in 5 episodes with a common string, because CN said to them that it was the best for ratings.

Peridot is undeniably marketable.
Correct. But also I don't know the specific schedules, cause its not IT's job.
Airtime gets really bad. Ratings are bad. The production has zero ideas and there's no promos. Nothing is coming up and rumors float that its dying. Especially when managers and administration stops talking about, people just guess.

But thats like any network.
Oh I'm sure it was a good show, it was just part of this whole marketing thing with the games. Plus 3d shows are difficult to make. Remember those mid 2000's city bumpers made by Animal Logic down in Australia? Where all the characters interacted? By far the best era. It only lasted for 2 years because the 3d was expensive, and those bumpers were made in a set. Then all following bumpers were just clips and altered pieces. By 2 years it was redundant and expensive, and CN dropped it for simplicity and has never returned.

This, if you're not a regular Sup Forums's had threads for a couple of years now debating and trying to figure out what CN's doing. It's nice to see a bit of the logic behind it, from our perspective it's seemed like they've made nothing but irrational decisions.

Yeah but even their filler episodes dont have good replay value. I don't know why the crew makes such uninteresting episodes inbetween good ones. They segregated the Crystal Gems, the Barn Gems and the townies a lot, and never integrate them.

I have zero idea how their production works but I don't get why nobody ever proposes an episode where Peridot, Steven and Pearl go to the store and talk to Lars or something. My biggest issue with the show.

Still love SU tho. And I can read the weather patterns...good eps are coming.

>Airtime gets really bad. Ratings are bad. The production has zero ideas and there's no promos

So SU?

So in a roundabout way it's all still Snyder's fault. Even after leaving his ghost still haunts us

No, but ratings are alright, we don't know cause of the leak issue. (and by the way, that Space Arc was the only time it was really CN's fault for the leaks, most of the time is other international CN's airing early or cable providers or Time Warner, whatever).

We all know good eps. of SU are coming, so its not getting trashed any time soon.

so is pearl and r/s because lesbians eat that shit up

yo OP can you tell someone that the way they air SU is pissing off the fans?

>We all know good eps. of SU are coming,

But we don't. We're hoping that the coming episodes are good, just like we saw potential in this show before.

>management has already pre-determined which episodes will get high ratings and which ones won't.

YOU MEAN THEY COULD TELL THAT ROCKNALDO WASN'T DESTINED TO GET 500 MILLION VIEWERS, COLOR ME SURPRISED.

Hey OP, how often are you on Sup Forums? Do you browse /trash/ too? Do you meme like the rest of us? Do you just lurk around, only now braving up?

>we don't know cause of the leak issue.
If you need THE cause, leaks happen via CN's servers, which is connected to Turner's servers.

I think he means more that the network had zero hopes for it, rather than attack on the show's quality.

It'd explain why they decided to just shove it into Boomerang without a care.

Here's a novel idea... Make a full season...then air that season.

>we don't know cause of the leak issue.
Time warner posts images and episode previews for their shows a few days ahead of time on their servers. It's supposed to be hidden but you can do some pretty predicatble stuff with the URLs to get them. A person going by misseps online is the traditional leaker, but hypothetically anybody can get them if they know what they're doing.

Full episodes are leaked either by them or one Dingo, who gets them from some "internal source" that's dictated when they can be leaked.

Wait, so let me get this straight:

>CN prefers standalone episodes, which is why TTG is everywhere
>But it also appreciates the hype and fandom that comes from shows with story-driven episdoes
>50% or more of SU's episodes are standalones, providing the best of both worlds
>But this is somehow bad

Why doesn't CN just rerun the townie episodes if they want to recycle standalones so badly? Don't tell me you need to know 100 episodes of lore to understand plots like "Pearl tries to be cool" or "Steven and Connie compete in street racing."

It sounds to me like CN doesn't know what it wants.

While you guys are at it! Make ANOTHER full season during the airing of the already completed season so you're prepared

>Trying to explain how episodes gets leaked to the guy working in IT who probably has the means to stop it

Not that he's LARPing or something

I can fucking only hope the leaks get plugged up, hype ruiner

Gotta go make dinner but I'm finishing up:
Because production can only make so many episodes. Stocking up means long wait periods, but its better than regular weekly airing for the network. SU bombs are like CN weekend movies that actually work. Hype them up, get everyone talking and blow.
Because Adult Swim is basically like a pirate channel that operates on the network and I love them for it. However, since they're like CN's kids, if they do something wrong, the parents get blamed (*cough* bomb scare).

I don't know. I predict it will last for a long time, but thats only because we know good things are coming and the network is renewing seasons.

Different divisions. Its not like a giant computer center, its just a few macbooks, pcs and ideas.

I don't get any info on rivals. The execs do and make decisions for us.

Probably because a good chunk of the fans are on tumblr and Sup Forums, not watching TV. I myself like to contribute but dont even own a TV. You'll get your bombs, dont worry.

It also sounds like they don't actually know what's in the shows they are, considering they also think TTG is an action/comedy series

Because Townie episodes don't do well. Older demographics hate them and younger demographics "don't get" them

I recall hearing rumors that Cartoon Network gets full merchandising rights or doesn't have to pay DC to air it or something along those lines.
Granted I heard it here, but it would make sense.

That's just crazy talk. Next thing you'll expect us to be airing the episodes in order. On a regular schedule, I'll wager.

You kids and your music.

Really important question please answer this:
What're ya eating?

A lot of the newer townie episodes are continuations of older ones, like the street racing based on Steven's hatred for Kevin or Tiger Philanthropist following up on Tiger Millionaire, combine that with the fact that the townie episodes generally get lower ratings than plot episodes then you can understand why CN doesn't want to air them.

No, I meant "we dont know the cause" of the full episode leaks. Yes we know they put out previews and stuff, that's no surprise.

And contrary to what you may have heard, there's no "strategic leaks" or us trying to leak on purpose to put bait in the water.

a lot of TTG episodes are legitimately more entertaining than shit like rocknaldo, I don't care who you are

only reason people say otherwise is because they feel like they have to treat cartoons like sports teams for some fucking reason and support their 'side' no matter what

I'm pretty sure it's only Sup Forums that hates townie episodes, every SU fan I've met in person loves them.

Read the second line then, it's confirmed there's some kind of insider leaking full episodes to a couple of known sources.

A burger from Nations.
No, I and everyone else here lurks all the time. Many post and are probably the same anons criticizing right there along with you