Why FOX pitching the ability to binge-watch cartoons doesn’t make sense

Buried underneath a digital pile of pictures featuring my dog, I took this pic way back at around Christmas time. Apologies in advance for the fuzziness, but you’ll get my gist in a bit:

 

At the time I didn’t think anything of it. But then FOX started promoting the hell of watching all of their cartoons on FOXNOW when it occurred to me…FOX is doing this wrong.

First thing’s first. For me, it is very difficult for me to sit-down and binge-watch anything that isn’t sports. I like to get up and I like to move around and take breaks. I like the weekly build-up that comes with not-binge watching. I binge-watched for BoJack season two which was way less painful than doing so for season one. But, as good as BoJack Horseman was, I think the thing I appreciated the most was that the entire season wasn’t 24 episodes long like a season of Family Guy or The Simpsons can be, instead it was a way more digestible 12 episodes. So, that begs the question again…

Is FOX doing it wrong? Right now, FOX is trying to advertise to me to start binge watching a bunch of their cartoons ahead of the new seasons to get all caught up. Guess what, FOX? I just can’t…As much as I love your animated programming, watching show seasons with episode numbers in the mid-20s is just really hard to do. That means the FOX network would have to do one of two things:

1) Order shorter seasons of FOX shows to make them more digestible for the general population that likes to just chill if your marketing efforts are going to be towards binge-watching. If anything, ordering shorter seasons of Bob’s Burgers, The Simpsons, and Family Guy could help the network focus on picking up new and varied content that could help reinvigorate a cartoon lineup that could use some uplifting.

2) Don’t market binge-watching. Trust that your fans are going to show up every week for new episodes of cartoons. Right now, new episodes are the only thing on FOX keeping me from tuning in on Sunday Nights. Why? Because I can find reruns of Bob’s Burgers, The Simpsons, and Family Guy on Adult Swim, FXX, and TBS respectively. This actually is the main reason why I get infuriated when FOX airs reruns of any of their cartoons on Sunday Nights because it really doesn’t make any sense. Give me a reason to tune in…brand-new episodes will do that. Putting your money into marketing reruns instead of new programming, doesn’t make any sense to me.

This is just the latest marketing snafu from FOX marketing. You guys may know that I wasn’t too thrilled with the hogwash that was this network’s efforts in promoting Golan the Insatiable, so hopefully the network can make some changes.