Quickest Way to Get a Superhero Show Cancelled is to Appeal to Girls

[Shorty]

There are many shows, DVDs, games and other merchandise about Barbies that are not actual Barbie dolls, yes.

[Old Manus]

You get my point. Such examples are TV shows based on the merchandise, rather than the other way around in this case.

[Shorty]

Does it... matter?

[Ayen]

Whether their motivations are one of sexist intent or not doesn't make their decision to cancel the show any less foolish especially when they haven't tried any measures to market to girls or appeal more to a male audience. Furthermore I see no one here talking about how they're doing this to oppress girls, just that it's a dumb move based on nothing more than an assumption.

[Calliope]

Is Barbie a TV show?

I don't get any TV channels, so I can't tell you if it's a TV show - but there are a LOT of Barbie made-for-TV type DVDs that are in constant demand at my workplace. If people want to stop targeting merchandise towards women and girls I personally think that's fine (once those kids hit twelve or so they'll be drowning in a sea of sparkly "NAUGHTY" branded shorts, makeup, scents and other grooming products designed to destroy their sense of self-worth, anyway) - I just think it's pretty poor that as a whole women are viewed as a market to sell to, and men are viewed as a market to entertain.

[Slothy]

Does it... matter?

Nope. Not one bit.

[Araciel]

I refuse to acknowledge this thread because a woman posted it.

Seriously though you can't fault old rich white ....

I can't finish the sentence lolol.

[Pumpkin]

Well, from what I can tell fromthe article, they are just being stupid. This is one of those cases where people are ignoring what is in front of them in favor of what they believe. So from what I can see, this is what is happening:

-They THINK boys buy more toys. Maybe due to some market research or study or somthing. It probably has a lot to do with what typeof toy also, and how it is marketed. But they ignore that part. They just see and think boys=toys and girls=not toys.
-They don't care about the number of viewers that are female because these things make a crap ton of money on merchandising and they still have that preconceived notion up above.
-And I *think* they seem to be under the impression that the larger female audience they have, the smaller the male audience will be. Meaning, they think if 100k, or whatever, females are watching, that there won' continue to be the 120k, or whatever, males watching, but that sudeenly the number will go down to 8k, or whatever, males. And they think if they lose males they lose money because they think males buy the merchandise. Is it true that the more females watch the less males watch? Maybe in some cases but I doubt it is a huge issue.

I'm pretty sure the people in charge of figuring out the above are not doing their job properly. I don't know where they're getting their research or what it is telling them though, so it is hard to say.

[Depression Moon]

Ratings and focus groups usually contain this information.

But where do those guys get it? With all the statistics and surveys I hear on TV, how come I've never actually heard of anyone taking these?

[Quindiana Jones]

Imagine an alpaca eating a piece of bread too big for its mouth.

That noise is the sound-equivalent of how much sense this decision makes to me.

[Del Murder]

Ratings and focus groups usually contain this information.

But where do those guys get it? With all the statistics and surveys I hear on TV, how come I've never actually heard of anyone taking these?

Ratings come from randomly selected housholds that are given a box to monitor their TV viewing for a set period of time. You probably have to fill out a form identifying demographic information before you are able to participate. It's administered by the Nielsen company.

Focus groups are probably similar but on a much more specific level.

It's kind of silly that these things determine what stays on TV and what is canceled since a lot of people get their viewing from other means, and these things are never truly random anyway (families are oversampled for instance), but this is how it's been for the last 50 years. =/

[Shlup]

What are you basing that on? Do you know how many Barbies and My Little Ponys and Sylvanian Families and ANYTHING ELSE little girls will bug their parents to buy? Women aren't just automatically immune to brand association and wanting to reenact the shows they see on TV with loads of merch, you know.

Is Barbie a TV show?

I mean, obviously the thought process here is based on the idea "girls' cartoons don't sell as many toys as boys' cartoons". Is that true? I have no idea. I just can't imagine this scenario where girls' cartoon toys do sell as much as boys' cartoon toys, but execs cancel it anyway because they want to oppress girls. The former seems more likely.

It's not that they want to oppress girls; it's that they're lazy and short-sighted and don't understand that they could do very well for themselves if they chose to focus on everyone and market toward whatever demographics the show draws in. Young Justice was a really popular show; it would have been easy to market products for it. But, no, the girl demographic was growing so they cancelled. Again, look at Adventure Time--appeals to both genders and pretty much all ages, marketed to all its demographics, and hugely successful on both accounts.

[Pant Leg Eater from the Bad World]

I only kinda read the first post and then skipped to reply, so this might have already been said.

But seriously, maybe girls don't buy as many of your stupid toys because you make troutty toys for girls! And so smurfing what? Boys are still gonna enjoy the show and buy the toys.

[Hollycat]

That's a really crappy reason to cancel a show. By that same logic MLP should have been cancelled season 1 because boys watched it.

[Freya]

For the record barbie has a ton of movies. I can sing all the barbie and the diamond castle songs. Source, my niece. So toy sales to correlate to shows and movies as well