pencilsharp
12-24-2001, 03:43 PM
Hi, kids!
I've written about this topic before, and it just didn't seem to catch many eyes, but there is some new info that I find quite interesting... You can read the entire article from LA Weekly here. (http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/05/news-gagliano.shtml) But this is the gist of it...
It's fairly obvious that Nick is making a tidy little bundle off of their animated properties. What we never knew was just how much. Howzabout $887 million in ad revenues? Only ESPN had more. A Writer's Guild of America - West (WGAw) rep used Hey Arnold! as an example of Nick's business model. He stated in the aforementioned article that Nick aired Arnold eps about 900 times (!) in the year 2000 alone. He further estimates each ep's production cost at $500K with respective ad revenues per ep of $14 million.
Okay. I have no idea just how far I'd be willing to trust any kind of crunched numbers, especially from a union rep trying to enter a shop with hostile management. Still, that does make sense when considering how often Nick's shows repeat. Oh, and don't forget all of the merchandising involved.
Problem is, if the WGAw can force its way into Nickelodeon Animation Studios, would Nick or its parent Viacom cut the studio loose just to keep unions out of its equation? And could that be the reason for MTV Animation's demise?
What do you guys think? And how does this compare to Cartoon Network's performance?
I've written about this topic before, and it just didn't seem to catch many eyes, but there is some new info that I find quite interesting... You can read the entire article from LA Weekly here. (http://www.laweekly.com/ink/02/05/news-gagliano.shtml) But this is the gist of it...
It's fairly obvious that Nick is making a tidy little bundle off of their animated properties. What we never knew was just how much. Howzabout $887 million in ad revenues? Only ESPN had more. A Writer's Guild of America - West (WGAw) rep used Hey Arnold! as an example of Nick's business model. He stated in the aforementioned article that Nick aired Arnold eps about 900 times (!) in the year 2000 alone. He further estimates each ep's production cost at $500K with respective ad revenues per ep of $14 million.
Okay. I have no idea just how far I'd be willing to trust any kind of crunched numbers, especially from a union rep trying to enter a shop with hostile management. Still, that does make sense when considering how often Nick's shows repeat. Oh, and don't forget all of the merchandising involved.
Problem is, if the WGAw can force its way into Nickelodeon Animation Studios, would Nick or its parent Viacom cut the studio loose just to keep unions out of its equation? And could that be the reason for MTV Animation's demise?
What do you guys think? And how does this compare to Cartoon Network's performance?