episodes premiere May 4 on linear and will stream on HBO Max the next day.has always occupied a unique place in the corporate portfolio. “We’ve always, in every iteration of this company, been this little animation operation in Atlanta, Georgia,” he said. “We sort of invented our own set of rules because we weren’t in New York and we weren’t in LA.”
“The DNA we share with Discovery is, they fully understand certain genres, so they understand how we operate in that way. They understand strong brands,” Ouweleen said. “They’re surprised at our strength. It looks on the surface like it’s a niche thing, but it’s not, it’s mass. … The one learning curve for them, and for me, conversely, is that most of Discovery’s content is very quickly made and they can make tons of it. Animation takes two years and hundreds of people.
Competition in the animation sector has long been fierce and a major push by Netflix and Apple in recent years has ramped up the intensity. Still, Ouweleen sees 2022 as the peak of the competitive free-for-all. “Now, I feel there’s been a correction,” he said. “The animation bubble hasn’t burst but it’s certainly calmed down a little bit. We’re not having problems seeing projects or talent.”
Sometimes, he added, the results can be completely unexpected. “We’ve had titles that skew female on linear and skew male on streaming or vice-versa,” he said with a laugh. “It’s title-dependent and I can’t make heads or tails of it!”
I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to retire Adult Swim and rebrand Cartoon Network to an all-ages channel.