News CITV (UK) to air Pokemon Advanced after 11 Years!

[charizardmaster125]

Hi all, wasn't sure where to post this but just to let you know that after a gap of 11 years (yes it's been that long) CITV in the UK have obtained the rights to air Pokémon Advanced from 12th January 2015. The show will replace the slot that is currently occupied by Pokémon The Series XY during Monday to Friday with an episode premiering at 7.20 AM and repeating later the same day at 2.10 PM.

For those that can remember, Pokémon Advanced previously aired on CITV's parent channel ITV 1 in Summer 2004 as part of the GMTV Kids (Good Morning Television) slot on a Sunday morning at a slightly more reasonable time at 8.20 AM, however when this season aired, only 19 episodes from" A Ruin With a View" to "Brave the Wave" were shown. "Get the Show on the Road" was skipped since Johto was cancelled after "Espeon Not Included".

Screenshot Evidence (Click to Enlarge):






On top of that, the episodes that were aired were heavily butchered with scenes cut to make a 15 minute slot which sometimes led to important plot points being axed which led to points of confusion though credit sequences and title cards where the main casualties. This was common practice by ITV however as Sonic X, Yu-Gh-Oh!, Digimon, Cardcaptors and Reboot (so it wasn't strictly related to Anime) suffered from the same issues.

Something tells me that this has something to do with the promotion of ORAS so presumably, Advanced Challenge and Advanced Battle will follow. Whether this will lead to CITV going back to Kanto, Orange Islands and Johto and completely air seasons they initially cancelled prematurely remains to be seen but it really doesn't matter at this point since old episodes are available from multiple sources these days and ITV Player will more than likely stream these on demand anyway.

For some in the UK at least (mainly Pokémon's newest fans) this will be their first foray into Hoenn on "Freeview / Freesat Television" and it will also give them a good taste of the show when it was being dubbed by 4Kids and with it getting the 25 minute slot this time, it gives me confidence that they will at least get the full experience.

 

[Blazing Charmander]

This definitely seems to be more a case of promoting ORAS than plugging in those gaps from a decade or so ago (a thought that makes me feel so old!). I used to tune in to ITV/GMTV/SMTV Live for the latest episodes of Pokemon until getting Sky, which of course was usually ahead of terrestrial TV in terms of episodes shown. I can't speak much for how the Johto saga was treated by ITV, but I do remember watching some of Advanced on the Sunday morning 'Up on the Roof' programme, which only aired a few episodes in a butchered format as you mentioned. Hopefully the series gains popularity with a new generation of kids that haven't been exposed to the 4Kids dub.

On a more general note, I wonder whether the choppy scheduling of the show by ITV has anything to do with the number of kids in the UK who disowned Pokemon during the Johto saga around that time. For those of us that had Sky, the show carried on being aired until the end of Advanced Challenge (albeit with a few quite lengthy time gaps in which reruns would be shown) at which point Toonami were given the rights to air Advanced Battle. This is purely anecdotal, but as a kid I noticed that marketing of the Pokemon franchise petered out some time after Johto Journeys (which was still heavily promoted through the likes of Walkers' Crisps which came with free Johto Pokemon Tazos), roughly around the period that ITV stopped airing the Johto saga. I also noticed that many kids at my school lost interest in Pokemon during the Johto saga which encompassed the time that I began High School and kids would mock others for "still liking Pokemon".

 

[Treacle]

I just saw this going through the tv guide. I'm very excited, Advanced was one of my favourite season. Kind of hoping they'll rerun the other older seasons, but that's unlikely since this is probably just ORAS promotion... I actually watched it on RTE mainly, but watched GMTV run when I could.

Anyone else remember the weird ad break sketches? :S

When will they be showing the Diancie movie for that matter?