>>103914540>>103914321The problem, anon, is you are conflating quality television with what is profitable to the network. An easy mistake to make, I assure you. But not one grounded in what they as a business are about. Any successful business must put profit top and first priority above all others.
You'd be right to question how this is exclusionary to quality programming. After all, wouldn't making something great mean an increase in ratings and thus, profit? And again, not mistaken there either.
The issue here is that for the first time in cable's history, cable subscribers are declining rather increasing. People are moving away from cable television networks and it's affecting every network's ratings and viewership. This isn't a fault of their respective networks by any means. However. It means that any given cable network is seeing cuts to their budgets to produce original content.
This means that taking risks with a lower budget is less feasible as recovering from losses from a potential flop would simply compound with those from an already shrinking viewership.
Simply put, small budget, easy and cheap to animate tv shows are where they have to make their money back. They have to shrink their production teams to cut costs so they can see a quicker and larger return on investment. Simplified model sheets, easier to animate models and less restrictive policies about staying on model is all much cheaper than highly detailed or expensive and time consuming series. What most of /co/ calls 'calarts' is more about, 'this-will-cut-costs-arts.' What might be more accurately called, "storebrand-arts." "EssentialEverdayarts." "GreatValuearts." "Kirklandarts." And so on down the line. Pick your favorite. (I'm a fond of kirkland myself. Their pizza's pretty good too.) But more to the point:
Cartoon Network has to produce shows that cost less to produce. These cartoons will result in profit much easier with less risk.