"Beware the Batman" in 2013! New Animated Series

The cancellation isn't surprising, given CN's narrowing demographic objectives in recent years, but it's disturbing that they don't even seem to intend to air the rest of the series. Maybe Netflix could come to the rescue again like they did for The Clone Wars?

I note that there's a new Scooby-Doo series in the lineup which sounds like it could be picking up from the finale of Mystery Incorporated. That doesn't necessarily mean the same creative team will be involved, but the cancellation of Beware the Batman could free up Mitch Watson to return to Scooby-Doo and make this new show a worthy successor to SDMI. In which case there'd be something positive coming from this, at least. But that's purely speculative at this point.

 

Excited to hear about the new Scooby series. Hopefully it does pick up after Mystery Inc. and they can maintain the same quality.

Though I find myself annoyed at the stories that Cartoon Network is "reviving" Scooby Doo. They've been reviving the show for over a decade...it's not something that's happening for the first time.

http://thecelebritycafe.com/feature...k-bringing-tom-and-jerry-scooby-doo-back-life

Figured that was going to happen to Beware the Batman but too bad. Here's hoping for a Netflix revival.

 

Teen Titans Go got renewed? I'm not at all excited by that news.

 

At least now we know there's 15 unaired episodes. That's more than Clone Wars!

 

Sad but not surprised about Beware the Batman. It was really starting to pick in quality, so I am very disappointed that it won't be coming back.

 

Well with 15 unaired episodes that's a big incentive to bundle them all together with the released episodes and do one large series set.
Double Dip on those who bought the "Pt.1 set", bill it as the Series and stamp those stickers on there proclaiming 15 UNAIRED EPISODES!!!

That's what I'll buy when they are ready.

 

I will bet the rest of the series will be broadcast by Netflix under a Season 2 banner.

 

For goodness sakes, how much does it cost to burn some episodes onto dvds and sell them over the internet? If they can't make even a few bucks doing that, they have no business being in business.

 

Hell, they don't even need to put them on disc, they can just put on Netflix like others have said, or sell them as digital exclusives through ITunes, Google Play, Amazon, ect.

 

I like how everyone is saying the unaired episodes show be shown on Netflix. If Netflix does that too much with canceled shows, they are going to become known as television's dumping ground.

 

Seriously? With 24 hours of programming available, Cartoon Network can't find a place anywhere to squeeze in the last 15 episodes? Is the umpteenth rerun of Adventure Time (whatever the hell that is) really going to pull in a massively better rating than a new episode of BTB?

I was not all that terribly attached to the show, but it's still bizarre to me why some of these decisions get made the way they do.

 

By the narrowly targeted standards CN uses, yes. I discussed above how their thinking works these days -- how they only want to appeal to young boys and will cancel any show that appeals to older viewers or girls, even if its ratings are strong. Their advertisers target young boys, so high ratings among other demographics don't matter if those advertisers aren't moving their product. Of course, why CN doesn't just, oh, get other advertisers that are willing to market to older boys and female viewers remains a mystery. They're shooting themselves in the foot by alienating whole categories of viewers, shrinking their audience base to fit their advertisers rather than growing their advertiser base to fit their audience. But that's their policy, and that's why they don't want older-skewing shows like BtB on their network anymore.

 

oops, double posted while editing

 

They used to burn off those episodes at some point. I wonder if now if unaired episodes makes the content more lucrative to the secondary markets like Blu-Ray and Netflix.

I would point out that Cartoon Network is split between CN and Toonami/Adult Swim so they don't have the full 24 hours exactly. I know it's all arbitrary in one sense but the two divisions are handled and treated separately internally. I don't think the CN side could decide to burn them at midnight without working with the Adult Swim side, for example.

I don't understand their scheduling decisions either. Scooby Doo Mystery Incorporated would have new episodes shown at 2PM weekdays with so little notice the DVR guide and TV listing sites wouldn't even register they were airing. Green Lantern was replaced with a rerun one week where the showrunner only heard about it from Twitter (this after doing a USA Today interview promoting the episode). GL and Young Justice were later yanked in a similarly unceremonious manner.

I understand business is business but I wonder if at some point hosing loyal viewers and creators won't come back to bite them at some point. It's not so much that the shows get canceled but the way it happens. Maybe for the young male audience they want it doesn't matter?

Spike pulled Blade: The Series for the same reason, it was doing OK rating wise but it was too popular with women.

 

I just don't understand that kind of thinking. Surely appealing to multiple segments of the audience is better than appealing to just one, because then you get more viewers in total. Deliberately trying to avoid appealing to half your potential audience just doesn't make sense to me.

 

I didn't realize demographics were so important. I always thought it was just the base numbers that were important, and the demographics were more of just a bit of interesting side information.

EDIT: I noticed that Adventure Time appears to be a big hit with adults along with kids, but it appears to be a huge seller when it comes to collectables, T-Shirts, and things like that, so I guess that makes it OK.

 

Nope. The money to make shows comes from advertisers, who pay for commercial time on those shows because they believe it will get people to buy their products and make them a net profit. So they want the shows to appeal to the particular category of people that their products are aimed at. Getting lots of viewers won't help the advertisers if those viewers aren't interested in buying what the advertisers are selling.

Although CN does seem to be bizarrely narrow in its choice of advertisers these days. As I think I said already, instead of cancelling popular shows that don't fit their sponsors' preferred demographic, why not just get more sponsors with a broader demographic focus?

 

New Zealand is still airing episodes, and they even upload them on their official network website:

http://tvnz.co.nz/beware-the-batman/s1-ep14-video-5853400


Unfortunately I can't view the episodes

 

Giancarlo Volpe has said many times that GL:TAS got canceled because it didn't have a toy line to support its costs. They couldn't land one because of the failure of the toys from the feature film - and those toys are *still* on clearance shelves at our TRU.