Animated IS NOT on the verge of cancellation in the UK

I can't be arsed to read another 2 pages of this, so I'll just post my thoughts and hope no one else has already said it.

i) Absolutely and totally, put the TF cartoon on ITV or BBC. If I can't easily access it (no Sky see?), I'm going to assume most kids can't access it. I have friends who have Sky, but no cartoon channels are included in the basic packages. No kids seeing it? Then no whiney 'BUT I NEED IT!' in the toy aisles.

ii) Tesco and Woolies did suffer bad sales during the TF movie. (This is based from my observation as a member of Joe Public) Think about it. The movie was one of the biggest films that year, with tons of exposure. The early waves sold great, movie characters flew off the shelf. Then came the Allspark figures... which to be fair most were awesome figures. But the case assortments were all over the place. Stockades, Longarms and Landmines are still EVERYWHERE.

Even G1 Voy Prime is shelf warming, kids want Prime from the Movie, with all the cool flames and stuff. So suddenly, Tesco/Woolies who bought into the Movie TF line have assloads of stock that just WON'T SELL. Suddenly some smug Hasbro rep goes to them, and basically says this new line will sell because its Transformers (even though it looks totally different from Movie stylings). Instead of an instant 'I want 100'00 units!' Retailers have adopted a more cautious approach.

Seems to me greed got the better of Hasbro UK, after the intitial sales of the Movie line, there were far far too many of the tail end produced, and once bitten, retailers just don't buy. This whole situation reminds me of the MOTU 2002 line.

iii) Action Man atom could be considered a massive failure. Terrestrial TV (I think) and toys all over the place. All on clearance now. Still. Which is a shame, cuz some of it actually was decent.

iv) All anyone has to do is copy the Ben 10 style and make a decent cartoon massive. Decent show in a decent slot on a freeview channel. But, the way Hasbro UK seems to do things their way of copying Ben 10 would be to give a kid a watch that can transform him into 10 different Transformers! On Nicktoons!

In conclusion, I'm not totally surprised by Animateds poor showing in the UK, I'm now wondering about the upcoming Animated comic (which should have been merged with the Movie comic ANYWAY, not stand alone) and am now wondering how this will affect Universe.

TF Movie 2 will be around no matter what.

I just hope Hasbro UK actually learns something from this. And MOTU. And Batman Begins. And Fantastic Four:ROTSS. And Star Wars:ROTS.

Sigh.

Oh and to the earlier question by someone asking why can't they produce smaller numbers, because if you reduce numbers it won't be cost effective.

The question should instead be asked, does Hasbro UK coordinate with the whole of Europe so large orders can be spread out all over the continent? That way everyone gets everything in smaller quantities.

I would assume this is the way, what with the Euro packaging and the fact that Hasbro UK is meant to be European central, but considering different territories get different things at completely different times, (like Greece getting different assortments way way after the UK) makes me wonder.

I don't think this is right and that the vendor has taken the lack of announced UK releases after October as cancellation for the line.

We know for a fact that Animated is suppose to launch on a UK terrestrial channel in the new year. Hasbro UK have been working on their spring / summer Transformers plans for the last few months, so its unlikely they will cancel Animated now. Transformers is still, over all, one of the best selling lines within the UK this year. Titan are releasing a licensed comic this month, why would Hasbro support this if they were dropping the toys the same month?

In any case, I will know for sure once they open for business today and return my messages, but to fellow UK'ers I say don't panic yet until its been officially confirmed.

And how does one find out the cartoon is on? Publicity, seeing the toys in stores and.....advertising, that's how. Yes the fact no one is watching the show in the UK is a major contributor to why the line MIGHT be failing but I'd argue they are not watching it because a) They don't know its on, and b) They don't receive the channel its broadcast on. Of course commercials advertising the toys would help, it would draw kids attention towards the line and the cartoon, on it's own its not going to save the line but to argue kids don't want toys on the strength of advertising it pure lunacy.

Meh! I couldn't give a monkeys really, i didn't like the 'kiddie' feel of TFA and the figures didnt inspire me! Come on we don't need more chins!!!!

Hopefully this means quicker and more releases (and less re-paints) for universe/classics 2.0 line!

Bring on ironhide, ratchet and hound! Yeah!

Julliant (page 1) I think the reason Spider-Man 3 did well as people were expecting it to be worth a look based on the 1st two Spidey movies, I think that Transformers ROTF will do better in the UK next time as it will be more of a known quantity than the first one.

Also there's not great tradition of following or even great Knowledge of who Michael Bay is in the UK... so they could not sell it off that - and the people who do know who he is are usually the ones who have seen Pearl Harbor and hated it.

They might have got somewhere if they'd put Steven on a plane and got him and Shia on a European tour to promote it.. that might have helped - but the movie got more Promotion in Australia than it did in the UK - it didn't even get a premiere.

I'm not sure I'd ever use the Word Spider-Man 3 and better in the same sentence though regardless of what I was talking about.

I'll be amused to see if they show Isabel Lucas in the Trailers/Adverts extensively as to people in most of the world she's just some random blonde girl who's done a couple of obscure movies but to Australians and the Uk Audience she's 'Tasha' from Australian Soap 'Home & Away'.

That will amuse the heck out some when they see her - probably as it does when you spot Isla Fisher in Hollywood things on on Red Carpet shoots for the same reason.

But then The (deceased) Joker used to be on that show as well.

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Hasbro UK have the cheek to describe Transformers as a Core Brand - they need to treat it as such then.

Interestingly I've been hearing lately that it's Star Wars Transformers that are in trouble as much as anything else.

I'd be interested how this news affects the Universe and Crossover lines ?

I think DIRGE121 is correct (Page 1) Universe Deluxes are Overpriced - at least the Star Wars Transformers (used to) come with minifigures and the Marvel ones are a fair bit larger.
The one Universe toy that does not seem to just sit there near me is the Legends and Tankor (Octane).

Price Increase + Credit Crunch / near recession = Poor toy sales.

I had real trouble finding Wall-E toys (I wanted to buy Clean 'n' Go M-O for my girlfriend, as she loves the character... so do I if I'm honest...) But I agree, there's very little worth venturing outside for - luckily for me I found a toy shop in Harrogate carrying Universe/Classics 2.0 and Alternators Prime for £9.99, so that was kinda lucky.

Otherwise it seems to be Lego, Star Wars, Wrestling figures and some Batman toys, but on the whole we seem to be a gaming nation rather than a toy one - you can't walk for 5 minutes in any one direction without tripping over GAME or Gamestation.

I've ploughed through all 8 pages of this.... [url=http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/transformers-sightings/86570-united-kingdom-transformers-sightings-256.html#post2409493]As reported here[url] [url=http://www.hasbrotoyshop.co.uk/d2c/b2c/display/(isQuery=&xcm=HasB2CStd&layout=6_1_58_47_71_15&uiarea=2&ctype=areaDetails&carea=466ED1B5E580013F000000000A03D360)/.do]www.hasbrotoyshop.co.uk[/uk] are blowing out most of their stock.

I see dlx and all the non-Bulkhead Voyagers selling insanely well. Bulkhead and larger .... not so good.

Draven, (Page2) I think the price hikes seem mainly to effect the Universe line - a Universe Ultra seems a bit overpriced at £24.99 when they have quality issues and the colors are so much worse than the Henkei ones which to a UK fan work out not much different in Price and at least if you buy that one the character looks like Powerglide and not Hothouse.

Animated toys seem to be selling for £9.99 & £19.99 still - I certainly wouldn't support a price hike on them they don't have the size or quality to be worth more than they cost.. heck they are probably more like £7.99 toys.

Conversely Activators are actually not to expensive at £4.99 in the UK - and for more than a month were selling at 25% off that.

If anything you'd think it would be Universe that was suffering with the higher prices and lower distribution even than Animated. Do Hasbro expect less of it ? Does it have lower sales Targets to meet ?

It seems a shame that this years "Christmas toy" is not something more interesting like a Supreme Animated Omega Supreme rather than the woefully poor Roll Out Command Optimus Prime toy.

The UK price for that is a few cent shy of $100.00 - $100.00 Bucks for that utter piece of crud.

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Incidently I would say one thing in Support of Bayformers The Robots look more solidly in the space and seem to be "there" more than Spider-Man is - especially in the 1st movie he does not match his background in terms of lighting very well in all the shots and seems to pop out of shot.
If I have one complaint about the Live Action Spider-Man movie it's that he takes his mask off to much.

It might be an interesting discussion to carry on in the proper place if someone would care to start a thread in the relevent forum to continue it...

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Out of curiosity I wonder if Animated only last one more season if a follow up might be a Western (3D style graphics) CGI show (not cell style)?
Time to dig up Transtech perhaps ?

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Cutting the animated line "Before" Xmas does seem like a very odd choice though - the Movie sequel hype will start to pick up once we are more into Next year.. but they really need something for the next half a year... and what they have might not be a lot to fill the shelves with. especially as not many UK places are even bothering stocking Star Wars Transformers/ Marvel Transformer or Universe at all.

Curiously the best supplier near me has a moderate amount of Universe, loads of Marvel Transformers 'though they usually fly off the shelves and are gone in under 2 weeks' they've had to restock them 3 times since they came out and its only a tiny shop and a small cluster of Animated toys. 'but no animated deluxes' apparently because they never deliver them. It's the only place bar Argos that I've seen that actually has Animated Leaders though.

RE: The Animated comic is that replacing the Movieverse UK comic or selling along side it?

I can think of two toy lines I only bought because of the adverts for them.
I think Adverts probably factored into my purchasing of Power Rangers Zords up until Wildforce & Ninjastorm.. after Ninjastorm I not longer saw adverts and the toy distribution dried up - as they are rather heavy they were to expensive to import so I just stopped buying them.. I had everyone up until Ninjastorm Including most of the Japanese ones of funny colors and i've not bought one since (except at yard sales second hand) not Sentai either.

That was Partly as I thought SPD was to kiddy and partly as they just got to expensive and lost to much quality.. Transformers are getting a bit more expensive and loosing Quality too - but I will stick with them for the moment.

Alongside.

This is a good post, I like this post, nowhere near as gloomy as the rest of the thread.