Cancellation 2011

Cancellation 2011
Info
Initial Air	Cartoon Network September 17th, 2010 at 8:00pm – April 9th, 2011
Canceled	March 2011
Rerun 1	Adult Swim's Toonami October 6th, 2012 at 3:00am
Rerun 2	Adult Swim's Toonami March 8th, 2014 at 5:30am
Written off	September 22nd, 2014 at 3:41pm
What now?	The future of SBT

This is an aggregated page of information about Sym-Bionic Titan's cancellation, reruns & write-off.

Show Timeline

1. Sym-Bionic Titan premiered on September 17^th, 2010 at 8:00 pm
2. The initial run ended April 9^th, 2011
3. Sym-Bionic Titan cancelled March 2011 on Fall 2011 line-up
4. Toonami 1^st rerun on October 6^th, 2012 at 3:00 am
5. Toonami 2^nd rerun on March 8^th, 2014 at 5:30am
6. Toonami scheduled confirms Sym-Bionic Titan won’t return on July 3^rd, 2014
7. Sym-Bionic Titan written off on September 22nd, 2014 at 3:41pm

Cancellation

After Sym-Bionic Titan finished its initial run, April 9^th, 2011, on Cartoon Network it wasn’t known until the 2011 Fall line-up was released, March 2011, that Sym-Bionic Titan wouldn’t return for a second season. To say the fan community was heart broken is an understatement. Many here confused as to why SBT was canceled when the show created nothing but mostly positive reviews. As one Cartoon Network representatives stated:

… Titan got competitive ratings with other action shows, but what shut it down was it didn't have enough toys connected to it. If you don't have the, the studios don't want to renew for another season."

―Cartoon Network Representative

Genndy Tartakovsky also mentioned at a Comic Con panel:

I was proud of all the work we did on it but... you know, we just couldn’t get a toy line and they did not want to support use… it was just one of those things that got away.

―Genndy Tartakovsky

This hurt the community knowing a single toy killed the show, but what really stuck the knife in the back of fans was on Tartakovsky's Reddit AMA when a a user asked "Are there any ideas you had for episodes that you never were able to do (especially for Sym-Bionic Titan, as it only lasted one season)?" he responded with:

YES!! We wrote 10 more episodes for Sym-Bionic TITAN that were better than the first 20. It was tragic for me to not have a chance to do that.

―Genndy Tartakovsky Reddit AMA

Not only did a toyline kill the show but episodes had already been written. The community quickly created several "Help Sym-Bionic Titan social media outlets which include Help Sym-Bionic Titan Get Another Season on facebook, Sym-Bionic Titan on Tumblr, Save Sym-Bionic Titan on DeviantArt & Save Titan Twitter on Twitter.

While these movements helped spread the word that Sym-Bionic Titan had been cancelled after a while most of them died down. The Tumblr group is now dead, DeviantArt has little to no posters and the "Save Titan Twitter" has become a repost/catch account for Help Sym-Bionic Titan Get Another SeasonFfacebook group. The only semi-active group is theFfacebook group which has lost most of i's momentum.

The Sym-Bionic Titan group on DeviantArt attempted to keep things moving which helped spark this wikia's admins to create "A Proposal to Bring Back Sym-Bionic Titan", a letter written for Turner Broadcasting in hopes to bring Sym-Bionic Titan back.

Most hope has been lost since the Write Off (see bellow)

Renewal

Adult Swim/Toonami

After many months of no news from Cartoon Network is was confirmed by Jason DeMarco (@Clarknova1) , the head of Toonami programming, that Sym-Bionic Titan would return to Cartoon Network on the Adult Swim's Toonami block. Sym-Bionic Titan would first air October 6^th, 2012 at 3:00am and follow every Saturday night/Sunday morning until the end of the season. Toonami would then give Sym-Bionic Titan a second run starting March 8^th, 2014 at 5:30 am.

On July 3^rd, 2014 it was confirmed by Adult Swim's schedule that Sym-Bionic Titan will not be returning to Toonami for a 3rd run.

Write Off

News article: SBT has been written off

On September 22nd, 2014 at 3:41pm, posted on the Toonami Tumblr page, the Toonami Crew notified the community that Sym-Bionic Titan & Beware the Batman had been written off.

Bad news: We JUST (like, hours ago) found out from our legal department that Beware the Batman and Sym-bionic Titan are being “written off,” financially, as of now.

―Source

The term "write-off" simply means that companies are able to write off certain expenses that are required to run the business. These assets which they own are creating a debt and in order to save money for both the company and it's shae holders it can write-off the asset. Basically saying "we don't have to pay this ay more so stop taxing use". Obviously they lose certain writes when they do this but in order to save money (normally taxes) it is occasionally done.

The future of Sym-Bionic Titan is an unclear one. While it’s a bit complicated, technically neither Turner (CN, Toonami, Adult Swim) or ANY OTHER group can air SBT on T.V, however, someone could snatch up Sym-Bionic Titan if they want to but wouldn’t be able to rerun them on T.V (in the U.S.A). If someone does end-up picking it up they can then theoretically release content that’s not air on TV, like a DVD/Blu-Ray box set, art, comics, etc... so long as it’s not on T.V. The show could also be picked-up outside of the country by this logic since U.S does not equal international law.

Now with that in mind we could also theoretically see some group pick-up the show and air an online version as it’s not on public broadcasting. More and more companies are moving to the online platform, Sony has show interest with Cartoon Hangover & even big name shows like Legend of Korra (besides the poor advertising for Book 3) moved to the online format.

At the time Adult Swim had removed it's VOD for Sym-Bionic Titan and the only legal way to watch Sym-Bionic Titan was to buy the Standard Definition (really a slap to the face) off iTunes (Part 1 & Part 2).

Sym-Bionic Titan is available on Netflix as of December 15th, 2019.

References