Here's the other question I received from Richard Pontius…
My other question relates to cartoons. How are decisions regarding a series cancellation made these days? Do ratings play less of a role? I've been quite impressed and enjoyed many modern-day shows like Batman: TAS and Batman: Brave and Bold, Superman: TAS, Avengers: Earth Mightiest Heroes, etc. but all get pulled from production before they seem to have run their course. In the case of The Avengers, I assume it was because Marvel/Disney wanted to retool the show to align with the movies. In other cases, I'm guessing somewhat arbitrary decisions from above, unless people like Paul Dini just get burned out after a while.
Well, Paul never gets burned out but I hope someday he does. As fine a writer as he is, he's an even better cook. I'd like him to give up writing — he can leave all those assignments to me — and open a restaurant, preferably one near my house. But that's not what you wrote to ask about. Sorry.
The decision to cancel a cartoon show these days always has at least something to do with ratings but generally more with how the show fits in with the over-all plans for merchandising and marketing the characters or property. Naturally, when a company or some division undergoes a major change in management personnel, that usually triggers a change in plans or priorities…and sometimes, what's currently being produced doesn't fit in with the plans of the new bosses.
Not long ago, I got a call inquiring about my availability to serve in some capacity on a new cartoon show based on an old, largely-dormant property that a company was planning to resuscitate. They were planning (and may still be, for all I know), this big promotional putsch to drive the characters back into public awareness with new toys and t-shirts and other merchandise and the advertising thereof. They had, they seemed certain, the funding to produce some double-digit number of episodes of a cartoon show that would display the "new look" for the characters.
For reasons they didn't tell me, the whole resurrection has been stalled-out so the cartoon show is on hold, perhaps forever. If it were to get on the air, the length of time it would be on would have a lot to do with whether it was aiding the overall fame and popularity of the characters and how many action figures of them were being sold.
Keeping a show in production can also have a lot to do with how many episodes have been produced…and this is where the ratings may really be important. If a show is still pulling down strong numbers on its sixth reruns, that can be an argument that new episodes aren't needed; that the company is better off investing that dough in the production of a new series rather than in more of a series that they think will continue to attract decent numbers without the expense of new episodes.
A friend of mine who signed on to work on a series once said, "I hope it does well in the ratings…but not too well."
If a show has made, say, 36 episodes, someone might say, "Hey, if we can get this up to 65, that will make this a much stronger package for reruns and overseas sales." Or if they've done 65 (or some other particular number), they might figure that exceeding that number will not be cost-effective in terms of raising the value of the rerun package. That was part of the reason we stopped making Garfield and Friends after 121 half-hours.
Also, some shows also get more episodes because they want to introduce new elements into the show (characters, props, etc.) that will be a part of the future merchandising. This is especially the case with shows that are financed, in whole or part by toy companies. They have new toys coming out that tie in with the franchise. They want the new toys to appear in the cartoon. That's why there were so many episodes made of properties like G.I. Joe and Transformers.
What may make the decisions seem arbitrary is that this is not an exact science and sometimes, one executive's rationale for ordering more episodes of a show is the same as another exec's reason for stopping a series. In the old days when TV networks bought shows for Saturday morning, all they really cared about were the ratings because the networks rarely shared in other sources of revenue like merchandising or overseas sales. Nowadays, most cartoon shows are funded by companies that do benefit from the merchandising and foreign sales so that has to figure into the decision-making.
Basically, that's your answer: It's not an exact science. These days, as far as some people are concerned, neither is science.
