What If You’re Not a Multinational?

The multinational corporations are not the only companies making animated TV series. But if you’re not a multinational and don’t own your own channels, you have to work hard to get a broadcaster interested.

One way to do it is with a marketing hook. You’ve got to show broadcasters something that they believe will pull in an audience that they can sell to advertisers. In children’s television, one approach is to adapt a well-known children’s book. Some companies, like Nelvana and Cinar, built their studios on this approach. The success of the books also provides a safety net for the broadcast executive in charge of buying programs. If a show based on a well-known book fails, it’s easier to defend the decision to buy the show than it would be to defend buying something untested in the marketplace.

The marketing angle doesn’t have to come from a book. While DreamWorks is a large, successful company, they don’t own a broadcaster and as a result, their success in TV has been limited. Father of the Pride, their forthcoming computer animated prime time series, has several marketing hooks. It uses computer animation (though that didn’t seem to help Game Over) but more importantly, it features Siegfried and Roy, performers who are known from their TV appearances and their Las Vegas act. It also doesn’t hurt that the animal characters are lions. I’m sure that NBC is hoping that Jeffrey Katzenberg’s previous success with animated lions will continue.

Independent companies often rely heavily on merchandising revenues. HIT is a British company that owns Bob the Builder. They spent a limited amount of money producing the animation and then merchandised the property as heavily as they could. They made more from the merchandising than they did from the show. Using their profits from Bob, they bought Barney the Dinosaur and also bought a Canadian company, Gullane, just so they could get ownership of Thomas the Tank Engine.

Some companies have resorted to giving their shows away for free in the U.S, just so that the shows can stimulate the sale of merchandise. Barney, even before it was bought by HIT, was provided to PBS for free, as was the show The Big Comfy Couch. The producers felt that if they could get the show to an audience, they could sell enough merchandise to pay for the production of the show and still show a profit.

I’ve heard of instances where producers offered to pay to put their shows on the air in order to find an audience for their merchandising efforts.

This is how companies sometimes get broadcasters interested. Another necessity for companies that don’t own channels is keeping their costs down, and they do this through outsourcing and co-productions. I’ll talk about these next time.

I had a bittersweet experience yesterday, during a screening at the Disney studios.
I saw Mike Gabriel’s new five minute animated short, LORENZO (which will be released May 26th with the feature “Raising Helen”) and it’s a real gem. I truly think it’ll be the Oscar winner in next years animated short competition.Like DESTINO, it is artistically brilliant, innovative and dare-I-say-it, “cutting edge”. Unlike DESTINO, it has a clever story, funny gags and sharp comic timing. And did I mention it was animated traditionally?That’s the sad part. I sat there enthralled by this delightful cartoon knowing that the studio had dismissed a majority of it’s traditional animation staff – and here on the screen was a clue to where Disney 2-D could go; here was a possible future direction for feature animation. A brilliant way traditional and CG can blend together beautifully.
The film does indeed use computers – a new computer program, ‘Sable, which allows characters to retain the crude but lush brushstroke appearence of Gabriel’s original inspriational art: acrylic paints on black construction paper.The finished product is a delight. That elusive “magic” that Disney once had is here in spades. Joe Grant came up with the story – about a cat whose tail comes to life and he can’t get away from it. Gabriel set the story to an Argentine tango (the film was started as a possible segent for Fantasia 2000). Roy Disney, Don Hahn and Baker Bloodworth produced. Kudos to all – for reminding us all how great animation is, and can continue to be.

How Multinational Corporations Thrive

As I mentioned in the last installment, the paradox of the TV business is that the increasing number of channels leads to a decrease in viewers for any one channel. Fewer viewers mean less income. There are strategies for getting around this problem and this installment will talk about how the multinationals – companies like Disney, Time-Warner, Viacom, etc. – deal with it.

One way large companies increase the amount of money they make is by vertical integration. A single company owns production, distribution and exhibition. Disney has the ability to create a show, distribute it and air it on TV. By buying from itself, Disney makes sure that money that it spends stays inside the company. Any profit generated by a show also stays within the company.

But how do Disney, Time-Warner or Viacom compensate for the shrinking size of their audience? They do it by putting their shows on more channels. All of these companies own more than one channel in North America. In addition, these multinationals own channels in other countries as well. There are Disney channels in Europe. There’s a Cartoon Network in South America. There are versions of Nickelodeon in several countries. If you can place your show on enough channels that you own, you can find an audience big enough to make a profit.

Animation travels better than live action. TV regularly takes shows from other countries and remakes them. All in the Family was based on a British TV series. Survivor now has different versions running in several countries. That’s not the case for Spongebob Squarepants. While he’s dubbed, the same episodes are shown all over the planet.

Economically, this model works great. From a creator’s or a viewer’s standpoint, it doesn’t work as well.

Large companies want to own things outright. If you pitch a show to a Disney or a Viacom and they’re interested, they’ll end up owning it. You’re free to try and negotiate your best financial deal, but the copyright will go to them. I don’t know Genndy Tartakovsky’s deal on Samurai Jack, but if Time-Warner decides that they want to team Samurai Jack up with Yogi Bear, there’s nothing that Tartakovsky can do about it. In the worst case scenario, a creator can be fired from his own show. This is what Nickelodeon did to John Kricfalusi on Ren and Stimpy.

The fact that shows appear on more than one channel effectively reduces the variety that the 500 channel universe was supposed to provide. What good are more channels if the bulk of them are running shows you can see elsewhere?

Another problem is that companies prefer to make shows from properties they already own. It’s easier to sell the audience something they’re familiar with than something new. I’m losing count of how many animated versions of Batman there are. I don’t doubt that as long as Time-Warner owns Batman, there will be new Batman cartoons. As good as they might be, the airtime taken up by Batman is airtime that won’t be available for something new. That limits the opportunities available to creators and limits the variety available to viewers.

But the multinationals aren’t the only ones producing TV animation. Next time, I’ll look at how smaller companies deal with the economics of TV.

Oh boy! I’m excited!
They go public on May 18th, but I just recieved an advance set of the long-delayed Disney Treasures: On The Front Lines, Tomorrowland, Mickey Mouse In Living Color Vol. 2 and The Chronological Donald.I’ll post a review of the wartime set as soon as I can, followed by my thoughts on the others – but I can tell you right now that they are amazing, and were well worth the wait.Oh, and Roy Disney’s signature is still on the packaging!

Hair HighWe plug a lot of Los Angeles screenings here, but we have a lot of east coast friends too – and I’ll do my best to post significant animation events in New York (and surrounding areas) when I hear about them.The folks at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY are continuing their animation programming with a Tribute To BETTY BOOP next week (May 12th) and an evening with BILL PLYMPTON (June 23rd), which will include a preview showing of his latest feature HAIR HIGH.I also hear that the Disney Wartime Cartoon Screening (next Tuesday in Glendale, CA at the Alex Theatre) will be happening in Washington DC later this month (more details to come). I’ll keep you posted.

Three Ways to Make Money

I’ve worked in different kinds of television animation for my entire career. As a result, I’ve become something of a student of the television business. This is especially true since I’ve tried selling shows.

This is the first part of a series explaining how the TV business works. The economics affect what shows get on the air. For those of us who work in the business, it affects the jobs that are available.

Companies have to sell a product or service to make money. What does a TV channel sell? If the channel has any advertising on it, what it’s selling is the viewer: you. By tuning in, you are adding yourself to the crowd watching that channel and the channel turns around and sells the crowd to advertisers. This used to be a channel’s sole income.

This is nothing more than a high tech version of the travelling medicine show. In the 19th century, a horse drawn wagon would move from town to town. A singer or banjo player would stand on the back of the wagon and draw a crowd. Once the crowd was large enough, it was time for old Doc Potter to come out and sell his snake oil. Only one dollar a bottle; good for what ails you. In modern terms, TV programming is the banjo player. The crowd never pays for the banjo player directly; it pays indirectly when it buys snake oil.

Since the start of cable television, there are subscription fees. Some channels receive a portion of their money from your cable bill and still run commercials for additional income. Other channels exist solely by subscription. That’s the only case where TV programs are actually the products, as the customers are paying for them directly.

The final money stream is merchandising. It might be as basic as selling the show on DVD or it might mean creating completely new merchandise around a show: toys, lunchboxes, comic books, etc. Animation is a natural fit for merchandising.

No matter what the money stream, the object is to draw the biggest crowd possible. More people lead to more sales. Here, we’re faced with an important paradox. The number of channels has grown proportionally faster than the number of people watching. While we all have greater choice as to what we watch, each individual channel actually has fewer viewers. Every new channel that shows up on your TV makes the problem worse.

Next: Multinationals and how they deal with the paradox.

As long as I’m on a rant about POPEYE on DVD, allow me to shamelessly plug a brand new release from the friendly folks at VCI Entertainment. This is the same company that brought you the Fleischer Color Classics collection, Somewhere In Dreamland.The POPEYE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTORS EDITION dvd VCI is releasing on May 25th contains all 34 public domain Fleischer & Famous Paramount Popeye cartoons, with prints taken from 35mm elements – and re-instated original titles. This is the best Popeye collection on dvd we will see until Warner Bros. releases restored versions some day in the far off future. It’s $19.00 retail from VCI or $16.99 from Amazon.com

My friend John Tebbel has been volunteering at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (moccany.org) in New York City. He wrote into the BREW for some advice:

“Recently a person called the museum office representing people whose office has a Chuck Jones mural drawn on the conference room wall, two murals actually. It’ll be torn down by May 15 if we don’t somehow find a buyer/adoptor. The museum has no bucks for such a thing, but we’re publicizing it some to see if we can locate someone. Here’s an ofoto link so you can have a look at my photos of them. At the moment, no institution or big auction house is interested. The Jones people on your coast didn’t express an interest. Estimate to take it off the wall is 3 to 4 thousand, at that point it has to be trucked or whatever by lucky owner. I figured you might know someone, or one of your readers would, who might be interested. If more than one suitor is identified, then they’re off to the races, I guess, but that’s another story. At the moment MoCCA would get small publicity for having helped to save a nice piece of art (very on model for Jones of the period, esp Daffy and Bugs). Anyway, if it does go down the memory hole at least you’ll have gotten a look at it. I suppose I’d try to get better pictures taken as a last resort.

If you are interested in preserving this Jones piece, contact John at jonesmural@aol.com.

The late Pinto Colvig (1892-1967) has never been honored for being the first person to portray “Bozo the Clown.” As of May 28, 2004, that will no longer be true, as Colvig will be inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Colvig is, of course, best known as the original voice of Disney’s Goofy, as well as Grumpy, Sleepy, Warner’s Conrad Cat and Fleischer’s Gabby. Pinto Colvig’s induction ceremony will take place on Friday night, May 28 at Tripoli Shrine Temple, 3000 West Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee.

Fleischer POPEYENo, not yet.
King Features has released a dvd boxed set of 1960s Popeye cartoons – some of the worst cartoons ever made. It’s parent company, Hearst, refuses to allow the release of the classic 1930s Fleischer cartoons and color 1940s & 50s Famous cartoons.The Boston Globe printed this article today about the dvd debate. If you want to see the remastered, restored Fleischer Popeye on dvd please write to King Features public relations, Ms. Claudia Smith, and ask her why her company is deliberately ruining their greatest asset.

I saw a screening of Chris Landreth’s latest computer animated film, Ryan, last week. The film is an animated documentary, somewhat in the vein of Paul Fierlinger’s And Then I’ll Stop, where unscripted conversations by real people form the soundtrack of the film. In this case, the subject is Ryan Larkin, an animator who worked for the National Film Board of Canada in the late ’60′s and early ’70′s. Probably his two best known works are Walking (1969) and Street Musique (1971). After the latter film, Larkin had something of a personal meltdown, due at least in part to substance abuse.

Landreth met Larkin when they were both on the selection committee of the Ottawa Animation Festival and Landreth became so interested in Larkin that Larkin became the subject of this film.

Visually, Landreth described the film as “psycho-realism.” Aspects of the visuals are photo-real. Skin textures, in particular, are photographic and reveal pores and blemishes. However Landreth’s goal isn’t realism. He freely distorts characters, props and sets to express the inner states of the characters or to comment on them. In this way, the film is a descendent of German Expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) or The Last Laugh (1924). Because Landreth is creating everything on screen with software, he has the advantage of a visual continuity and flexibility that directors Wiene and Murnau couldn’t take advantage of.

The film will be screening at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto later this month and also at Cannes and Siggraph. No doubt it will turn up at other festivals. Personally, I prefer it to Landreth’s earlier films The End and Bingo. It’s definitely worth seeing.

You can read more about the film and view a clip here.

Hi folks. This is my first entry as a guest “brewer” here. I mention it so that if you suddenly find yourself wondering why some entries seem different or out of place, it’s probably my doing. Don’t assume that Jerry or Amid have lost their bearings; check the byline so you know who to blame. We’ll see if I’ll be the first of a long line of guests or if Jerry and Amid will rue the day they ever decided to let others into their playground.
Amid has thoughtfully placed a short bio of me on the right for those of you who are curious. More entries will follow.

It’s that time of the year again!
Another fantastic issue of HOGAN’S ALLEY has hit the stands – and it’s another treat for those of us who love animated cartoons.HOGAN’S ALLEY is billed as “the magazine of the cartoon arts” and though its primary focus is comic strips, there is always a healthy dose of animation information within it’s 152 pages. Here’s just a few reasons why you should buy the latest issue (#12): Jim Korkis writes two separate in-depth articles on STEAMBOAT WILLIE and DUCK DODGERS, Mark Arnold recounts the career of JOHN SUTHERLAND, an interview with DAVID SILVERMAN (“The Simpsons”), a look at PAUL MURRY’S non-Disney cartooning and a piece on MYRON WALDMAN and his short lived comic strip “Happy The Humbug”.This issue marks the ten year anniversary of HOGAN’S ALLEY. It’s a wonderful magazine that has added much to our collective knowledge of cartoon art. Buy it!

Someday soon, a flood of subpar 3-D CG animated features will enter the marketplace and Hollywood’s love affair with the technology will end – and traditional hand drawn animated features will return and be appeciated again.Helping to speed this along: GEPPETTO’S SECRETFor more details, read the DMX Entertainment press release.

In honor of the forthcoming dvd release of WIZARDS, Ralph sits for a short interview at fulvue drive-in.com