As I explained in a previous post, the way Cartoon Network assigns a time slot to a show has a direct correlation to how much money Cartoon Network stands to make off the broadcast deal.
By the time SEED was scheduled to go on the air, the Gundam franchise was in steep decline - most of the money in the Gundam franchise is made from toys and gun-pla, and neither were doing well in the N. American market. Consequently, Cartoon Network stood to gain little from a revenue-share agreement. Little wonder, then, that Cartoon Network shoved SEED into a far-less lucrative time slot.
In summary, if SEED was given an unfavorable time slot, it's because Cartoon Network stood to make little money off the deal - it's not that Cartoon Network's unfavorable treatment of SEED is what caused a decline for the Gundam franchise. With regards to trying to understand what caused the demise of the Gundam franchise, a lot of folks have the cause and effect reversed.
As others have already pointed out, the biggest problem I see with how they handled it however was that they took the lack of success from post Gundam Wing shows (none of which was ever treated as well as GW it should be pointed out, even G Gundam got less than half the amount of weekly airings that GW got) and acted like that automatically meant that Seed would bring little success. They didn't even try to air it in a manner similar to Gundam Wing. You say that Seed got an unfavorable slot because CN stood to make little money from the deal, I say that CN stood to make little money from the deal because they moronically aired it one night a week, at far too late a time, on one of the worst days of the week (probably only worse than friday) for TV ratings, and with an edit that would have a good chance of turning away even the older fans. It's one thing if CN had documented evidence that Gundam SEED (not just Gundam, the distinction has to be made) was going to bring them poor ratings and little money based on a reasonable television airing. Had they treated it like Wing and had the returns after a month been horrific ratings, that's one thing, and I'd fully agree with significantly reducing its air time. They didn't even bother trying that. They tried it in a manner that was guaranteed from the start to never be a success.
Not disagreeing with you Keith, but I think CN was incredibly short sighted when it came to Seed and while they didn't cause the decline of the franchise on TV, they definately caused the death of the franchise on TV because of how they handled it. I haven't said that Seed's airings caused the demise of Gundam. The demise/decline of Gundam was due to multiple factors including bringing MS Gundam over way too soon, overloading the market with Gundam shows, overloading the market with Gundam toys, and the overall decline of the anime market in general. But Seed's airing did cause the death of Gundam's chances on TV because it performed so poorly. And I will always believe that had CN thought things out better with respect to that airing it would have performed a lot better and we'd be in the position where Seed 2 and Gundam 00 would have the ability to air on TV rather than the 0% chance that they now have of ever airing.
Even Naruto only airs once a week, though, and that's something I just can't understand about what they've done to Toonami. True, that's how often it airs in Japan, and maybe that's the way all shows air in Japan for all I know, but that is not a broadcast philosophy that works when you are marketing to kids and teenagers, which is pretty much Cartoon Network's entire demographic. It's even worse when that day is Saturday night, and anime is a very small part of their lineup any other night of the week except for Adult Swim (as far as I know, anyway; their website is maddeningly slow and unfriendly).
Right again Gelmax! Gundam Seed is a very slow moving show. Airing it only once a week KILLED it. Anyone who had watched the show before airing it would know that fact. How things work in Japan is not how things work in America. It would never be a success in America airing only once a week. People's attention span for such a slow moving show can't last for an entire year.
strong theory, but I think ultimately incorrect. First of all, Cartoon Network wouldn't really be able to guess at SEED model sales before SEED aired, given that they hadn't aired a "real" Gundam series since Mobile Suit Gundam in 2001-2002. When Cartoon Network started airing SEED, the only Gundam shows they had aired recently were SD Gundam Force and G Gundam, neither of which could really be used as indicators for SEED's popularity or performance, given that G Gundam was an entirely different genre and SD Gundam Force was a failure. I don't know how popular G Gundam toys were at the time, but given that the series had been airing on Cartoon Network for two whole years and was dropped around that time, and was (from what I recall) aired daily, I'd say it was only natural for sales to start dropping - I wouldn't think that the American market has quite the level of obsession with merchandise that the Japanese market does. Given that SEED was one of the inaugural shows of the new Saturday-night Toonami, I'd guess that Cartoon Network expected at least fairly decent performance from it.
I think what the problem ended up being with G Gundam is that they flooded the market with piss poor minor Gundams that appeared in only one episode of the show and the market rejected those. Similar to the anime market in general a few years ago that flooded the market with too much stuff, they created way too much stuff and that is a core reason why the toy market was in a poor position when Seed aired. I don't think its reasonable to infer that the failure of a Matador Gundam or some other random Gundam that was in 2 minutes of a single episode of G Gundam meant that the main Gundams from Seed couldn't sell.
When he mentioned the "Human Popcorn Incident" I think he was referring the episode where they fired the Cyclops System they showed pilots' bodies exploding inside their pilot suits like popcorn.
A thing I always have thought that they should have purged from the TV airing entirely. Seed fans can complain all they want about the edits, I don't care. Certain things have to be done to get a show airing on TV in the first place.
It's also a significant flaw I see with the show itself, that it has at times very childish plots, very childish characters and very childish character designs, yet contained scenes of such violence that the show could be misenterpreted as having to air only late at night, which of course is what happened.
However, as Derringer correctly notes, Cartoon Network did base their projections on the "Gundam" brand as a whole - and with the exception of Wing, most subsequent "Gundam" shows did not make Cartoon Network as much money as they would've liked. They didn't see any reason to believe that SEED would reverse what they had experienced in the past, and their projection regrettably turned out to be correct.
Although it should be noted that the main reason why their projection ended up being correct is because they aired it in such a manner that it was guaranteed to fail from the start. Seed had huge potential. Its unfortunate that because they made such horrible decisions when it came to airing the show that we'll never know whether it actually would have succeeded. Despite my complete hatred of the show, I'll always think that the show could have been very successful had they treated it in a manner similar to Gundam Wing.
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). I'll always believe that the essential death of Gundam on TV is largely due to the horrific manner in which Gundam Seed was aired on TV. They screwed up so horrifically, whowever decided to air it one night a week, at far too late of a time, and with a horrific edit that made no sense at such a late hour that they killed the franchise's chances on TV (I heavily lean towards CN, but who knows, maybe Bandai deserves some blame too). A show from 1979 was never going to be a hit on TV, but as much as I dislike the show, Seed had a lot of potential and rather than even attempt to treat it like they did Gundam Wing they threw it in the garbage. Companies and networks shouldn't expect a succesful result when they treat a show like that. DVD sales would improve with adequate television airings for higher profile shows that at the very least can bring new people into the medium (like myself back in 2000 with GW). If they want to treat shows like they did Gundam Seed, so be it. It's their decision. Just don't expect a sales volume like you had a few years ago when the industry was in much better position and was treated much better on TV.
