Corus Entertainment named YTV’s Fall 2011 Press Release as “YTV FALL LINEUP HAS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE, EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK!”. Please keep this in mind while you read on.
YTV’s fall pickups include Friday Night Lights, Rated A for Awesome, and Life With Boys. Friday Nights Life is about football. Rated A for Awesome is a show made by Nerd Corps. Life With Boys is a live action thing produced by Nelvana. Returning series are The Next Star, In Real Life, Splatalot, That’s So Weird, How To Be Indie, Sidekick, Mr. Young, and Beyblade (though they label the second season as a “new series” for some reason). There’s also the stock pile of Nick junk like Big Time Rush, Victorious, and iCarly. You can find all the relevant premiere information here.
Nickelodeon Canada shows no sign of becoming useful and picks up Supah Ninjas, Bucket and Skinner’s Epic Adventure (should I call Bill and Ted?), House of Anubus (which was a YTV.com exclusive at one point), Kenan & Kel, and The Amanda Show. To see relevant information regarding premieres click here.
Yo dawg, I heard you were half dog so I didn't air your show out of principle.
I’ve been an anime fan since I first set my eyes on Escaflowne on YTV back in the day. I lived through the era of Endless Waltz having endless waltzes. I lived through the era where Yu-Gi-Oh!, and Beyblade were king. I gleed during the time of Inu-Yasha. This, is a low point. The biggest low point I think anime’s faced in this country in a long, long time. Retailers like HMV are struggling and cutting back wherever they can, which means store closures, and niche products like anime getting the shaft. We’re seeing large market titles like Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood go to niche venues like Superchannel. Heck, we’re seeing mainstream success stories like Dragon Ball Kai not even airing in this country. All we have are the children’s 22 minute toy commercials, which will we hope will foster an audience someone will want to cater to. But even then that’s flawed as outside of Bakugan, we’re behind in everything. Including Beyblade: Metal Masters which will have premiered in both Australia, and the United States before a single episode even airs in the country that co-produces it, and records the show in Toronto.
Entitled anime fanboy schtick aside, this schedule is pretty bad. YTV only picked up 3 new shows this season. 1 of which already aired on Canadian TV. I mentioned how safe Teletoon’s fall lineup was, well if that was safe, this is hiding under the covers ignorant to the rest of the world safe. No 24/7 major channel should only have 3 new series to debut in the fall.
But worse off is the variety, or rather lack thereof. The fall schedule’s lineup consists almost entirely of family and kid oriented sitcoms, with 2 reality shows, a drama, and an action series. The press release said “something for everyone”. One show people could’ve seen before isn’t going to feed drama fans. A few series aimed to sell toys to boys isn’t going to fulfill the wants of people looking for action programming either. Maybe YTV should’ve saved their share of that 14 million they’re spending on a co-pro action series (!!!!) with Australia and just used that to pay for some new acquisitions.
Just a note to anyone expecting coverage of Family Channel and Disney XD’s lineup, I can say that’s not going to happen. I’ve seen what they’ve picked up and I couldn’t come up with anything longer than a list.
