Osmo is more or less onto something here. It's a similar pattern that all consumer markets of entertainment experience. As an example, CBS (Central Broadcasting System) of the US had many shows that were primarily aimed at elevating the consumer's cultural awareness. They had what you might call very high-brow shows. The writing, acting, and dramas were all of the highest caliber attainable. But eventually CBS learned that if they wanted to keep in business, they had to appeal to the low-brow masses the other networks had been doing. So after many long years in the depths of Nielsen rankings, which determine the prices networks could charge advertisers, CBS changed. It went from
"Kukla, Fran and Ollie" to
"Scooby-Doo". Which coincidentally first aired the same year as Sesame Street on PBS. The high brow cultural television has now been relegated to the public broadcasting, where Nielsen ratings do not affect which shows get aired, and remain on air; because advertising rates do not affect their funding as it does the other networks.
Luckily in Japan they do thing a little differently than in the US. There, instead of catering solely to the market, which would only produce shounen and ecchi shows, they have a way other than having a public broadcasting system show all the equally alienating high brow shows that would not increase anime viewership, but would show a generally higher quality of anime. There is NoitaminA, a tool to garner female viewership, without completely alienating the predominant male audience.
As long as there continues to be a strong demand for better shows, the anime creators will not throw up their hands and give us only insipid, vapid, vacuous, inane, banal, vulgar, and idiotic material that appeals only to the lowest common denominator audience which is what passes for a market in the US. Aside from my spending my evenings working, why do you think I watch anime instead of Prime Time TV?
Even Naruto has better lessons for young boys and girls than any US program that airs concurrently that I can think of. That show has a lot more in common with
"Fat Albert" than it does with whatever mindless drivel is spewed on the air today.
