Ask John: Why Isn’t There Any Shoujo Anime on American TV?

Question:
A bit of a follow up on your question to list the top 10 reasons why the American anime industry is in decline. One of the reasons you mentioned was a lack of shojo anime on T.V. Why do you think the reason is for this? I know that Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura did pretty well on T.V., so why have no other big name shojo anime had any success since then?

Answer:
The absence of shoujo anime, or anime primarily targeted at girls, broadcast on American television isn’t due to unwillingness from domestic distributors. It’s primarily influenced by advertisers and the American consumer public. Ultimately, there’s no shoujo anime on American television because programs targeted at girls don’t generate significant ancillary sales.

Sailor Moon probably has been the most successful shoujo anime ever broadcast on American television partly because it was the first magical girl anime ever broadcast on American television. But note that Sailor Moon aired on American TV 13 years ago. While Cardcaptors wasn’t an abject failure, it wasn’t a resounding success, either. Cardcaptors was pulled from broadcast on the KidsWB network before reaching its conclusion. The re-broadcast on the Cartoon Network lasted only a few weeks. Even the series’ home video release was prematurely canceled (although the uncut, subtitled version did reach American DVD in its entirety.) The American television broadcast of Tokyo Mew Mew and Ojamajo Doremi that followed, along with the shoujo influenced Escaflowne, also failed on American TV. 4Kids Entertainment acquired broadcast rights to Pretty Cure, but never even attempted to actually air the program. Shoujo anime has consistently under performed on American television, which is one reason for its absence. But more importantly, there’s no shoujo anime on American television because shoujo anime isn’t profitable on American television.

Playthings Magazine reports that American sales of doll toys fell by 8% last year, suggesting that girls don’t buy enough toys to satisfy the toy or broadcasting industries. More revealing, earlier this summer Variety Magazine reported on The Cartoon Network’s effort to tailor its programming around capturing the interest of pre-adolescent and adolescent boy viewers. As Variety’s article states, “Advertisers are after the young male demographic to sell action figures, food and other branded merchandise.” The Nickelodeon network, which skews its programming toward a girl audience, attracts more total viewers, including “girls that… [advertisers] don’t necessarily want.” As a result of targeting its programming to young boys, The Cartoon Network’s ratings are down, but revenue from advertisers interested in the Cartoon Network’s boy audience has increased this year by nearly $50 million. To put it simply, concentrating on programs for boys eliminates as much as half of a network’s potential audience, but broadcasting programs for boys is significantly more profitable than airing programming for girls.