How do production companies make money?

[trenton]

I am wondering about businesses which produce cartoons. This would be mostly kid shows like cartoon network, Nickelodeon, cookie jar, and so on. The producers of adult shows like family guy could be included in this question.

If I produce a cartoon and put it on tv, where does the return for the investment ultimately come from? Is it mainly from advertising? How much of an investment does it take to produce about 100 episodes that run once a week? I also need to know how to get such a company off of the ground if it turns out I have to build one.

[Yarco]

You would never make 100 episodes all at once upfront, it's way too risky. What if the show flops?

Not my industry or something I'm an expert in, but this is how I understand it works...

- You pitch an idea to industry executives or some kind of representative from a channel / network / streaming service
- They give you a small upfront retainer or advance (usually only a couple thousand dollars at most)
- You make a pilot episode for them. If you're doing all the animation and stuff yourself, it'll probably take you months just to make one episode. Maybe you partner with one other person to either write the scripts or do the animation, whatever your strong points are.
- They give you the greenlight and sign a contract for your first season, maybe like 20 episodes. Then you can maybe afford to outsource a lot of the animation overseas. You probably won't get paid very well because it's still unproven and you're a huge risk.
- If the first season goes well and they want to renew, then you're in a position to actually start demanding some good money.

I would watch a bunch of early interviews with Matt Stone / Trey Parker / Seth MacFarlane / Matt Groening, try to find biographies about them if any exist to learn exactly what they went through in the early days and what the process was like.

If it was me, in 2022, it feels like a huge risk to take on, and like people in the industry will take a huge percentage of your earnings. I'd much rather try to go it alone and start a cartoon on Youtube where I have 100% control and get 100% of the earnings. The hardest part is not automatically having your stuff broadcast to millions of people. But TV is kind of dying anyway. And if your cartoon is any good, it'll quickly start to spread via word of mouth on its own.

[MarkKol]

Suck it up and do film cartoon first. You can make a film, and if it succeeds you can continue the story with a series sequel 

Film = single episode, usually 140 minutes long

Series = multiple episodes, maybe even seasons

A film usually equals to almost 12 episodes worth of content, because a film has 1 intro and 1 outro while a series has an intro and outro every episode. The difference is profitability, now I'm a big fan of nickelodeon cartoons in fact my favorite cartoon ever is Avatar the last Airbender and The Legend Of Korra. And because of that I Hate using Anime as an example, in fact I hate most Anime. But just to prove to you films are more profitable here's an anime example: 

"Demon Slayer: Mugen Train grossed over 57 billion yen ($500 million) worldwide. It also became the highest-earning movie of 2020 and the first non-Hollywood film to do so."

If you're not familiar, Demon slayer Mugen train is a film that was a sequel to the series called just "Demon Slayer"

Demon Slayer series was 26 episodes long 

Demon Slayer film (mugen train) was only 1h 57m and it made half a Billion dollars in revenue since it was last reported in 2021, and that's only box office revenue it doesn't include everything. The film surpassed the series by a huge amount, even though it was shorter and therefore cheaper to make. Films are easier to market, its literally just that. Series are made for enthusiasts, films for the masses. That's the key.

Im a enthusiast myself, so I like series a lot more than films. I find them way too short for me 

Take Pixar or Disney for example, they don't make much series if any (pretty sure pixar never made a series). Pixar and ESPECIALLY Disney are run by people who want to maximize profits, so they make films. You don't have to be like them, but you can learn what makes money since its critical for your company's survival, money for a company is extremely important at the beginning. The more it ages the less of a problem money becomes (although still important)

Ight imma be honest, I was only talking about Disney in that part, Pixar's films are high consciousness compared to most others (for example, Pixar's "Soul" is Leo's Life Purpose Course in a nutshell)

3D character animation sucks however, I just hate the look of it, they can all peacefully fuck off with their  micro face expressions, so annoying and weird

 

Sorry for the typos I'm typing on a 5.8 inch phone screen

[thisintegrated]

Yeah basically just 100% advertisement.

But TV is a bad idea.  Need to already have demand before you go that route.

[trenton]

@MarkKol I think you have given a lot of valuable input. Comparing the profits of movies and series seems to be a good point. It takes a lot more work from a dedicated team to get a long series to come to a close after five or more seasons.

The idea that inspired me to make this post was a new Zelda cartoon. I tried calling Nintendo, but they currently have no plans until a production company purchases the rights to produce it. I'm sure it would get a ton of attention. I wrote out some of the script and it is pretty entertaining.