LogFAQs > #974753726

Great topic, thanks so much for doing this.

I promised a regional dumb thing when CNReal appeared so heres what happened to Toonami in the UK and Ireland:

So, in the early 2000s Cartoon Networks Toonami block spun off into its own channel in several markets, showing a lot of the same anime as the US block with western action cartoons as well. Overall the aesthetic was very similar to the US Toonami brand. The channel did pretty well for a number of years, the audience was growing, and things seemed to be going pretty well until in early 2006 they announced a rebrand with this truly terrible ad -
https://youtu.be/h3vbdOZUV5A
which turned the slick futuristic aesthetic into giggling cartoon blob monsters, and announced a slate of live action sitcoms and reality shows. In other words, trying to turn the whole thing into The Disney Channel, but worse (some of the shows even ran on Disney in the US). Needless to say, the ratings tanked and the channel was effectively shuttered just over a year later.

The wild thing is, this happened before live-action things like Re-Animated aired on Cartoon Network in the US, and years before CN Real. In other words Turner had already tried the pivot to live-action in an English speaking market before they tried it in the US and it had already bombed. Why they kept trying for years is beyond me.