Cable Ratings

The reason there's more TV animation than ever? It makes much money.

Adult Swim ranked #1 among basic cable networks for Total Day Delivery of adults 18-24 & 18-34 and men 18-24 for the second week of September. ... [A] new episode of the acquired series Bobs Burgers (Sunday, 9:30 p.m.) ranked #1 in its time period among adults 18-24 & 18-34, and grew average delivery of adults 18-34 by 2% and adults 18-34 by 20% vs. the same time period last year. ...

Adult Swim programming – including Family Guy, American Dad, Robot Chicken and Black Jesus – accounted for 21 of the top 50 telecasts of the week on basic cable among adults 18-34, and 23 of the top 50 among men 18-34, both more than any other network. ...

Across the second week of September 2014, Cartoon Network ranked as television’s #1 network for Total Day Delivery of boys 6-11 & 9-14, and #1 for Early Prime (6-8 p.m.) Delivery among kids 2-11 & 6-11 and all targeted boys. Total Day delivery grew year-over-year among kids 2-11 by +17% and kids 6-11 also by +17%. ...

And so on and so forth.

We've reached the point where broadcast television (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) is little different than cable television. On any given night, Cable networks outgun their broadcast cousins. Which makes sense, because everything is on cable, and fewer and fewer people derive their viewing pleasures through a rooftop antenna.

But even cable as we've known it is changing. The day approaches when everyone will be sucking their preferred content off the internet, and then cable will be side issue. It's going to be "whatever you want to see, whenever you want to see it." Content and branded content will be the deal. The delivery system will be irrelevant.

Which explains, come to think of it, why we've had this expansion of television animation. It's potent content. Cartoons are relatively inexpensive to create, have a long shelf life, and people watch them in droves. (And there's the added bonus of big sales of ancillary merchandise -- dolls, games, video knick knacks and phone apps. What's for a fine, entertainment conglomerate not to like?)