Ocean Studios' "Dragon Ball Kai" Dub Turns 14; Still Unreleased

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

It's entirely possible that they didn't see the point of getting the Ocean dub because FUNi's is so prevalent online.

Except, from what I've heard -- and pay attention this time, I've said it at least twice before now, -- they weren't given the option of getting the Ocean dub. That's why I suspect some kind of foul play.
Granted, there's no concrete evidence of this, but it's not hard to imagine Funimation asking Toei to give their dub preferential treatment in Europe -- or perhaps the UK in particular -- when it comes to English dubs. And it's not too much of a stretch from there to imagine Funimation asking the licensors to not offer the Ocean dub to the UK.

I have my doubts Funimation was responsible for Kix not having the option of airing the Ocean dub. I'm not saying its impossible, I just think it would be an unwise move when they paid Ocean to do the edits for the Nicktoons version of Kai. Yes there is the financial benefit for Funimation to have their dub aired in as many English-speaking countries as possible but if Ocean found out there was any foul play it could cause Funimation could lose them as a business partner for future projects.

If I had to guess, since we know it was TOEI's call I'd go with the theory they wanted to maximize sales of the orange bricks at the time by not having two conflicting dubs of Z and Kai on home video and TV respectively.

[90sDBZ]

The Ocean cast was brought back apparently due to fan demand.

Do you have a source for this? Because over the years I've never seen any real evidence to suggest this was the case. There's actually an interview somewhere on this site with Ian Corlett were he mentions the Westwood dub being made due to "an entanglement of rights", or something to that effect.

Honestly, considering the fact that Toonami UK/AB Groupe were happy to ditch the main Ocean cast in favour of the less experienced Blue Water cast for GT and DB(effectively doing the exact same thing Funimation did in 1999), and later even use the Big Green dubs for the movies, I very much doubt they gave a damn about fan preference or consistency.

Also consider that the vast majority of the viewers were kids who wouldn't gain internet access for years. I very much doubt Cartoon Network UK would make a big decision like that based on what a small minority of older viewers were saying. It was most likely just a cheaper option and allowed them to dodge paying music royalties like you mentioned.

[8000 Saiyan]

The Ocean cast was brought back apparently due to fan demand.

Do you have a source for this? Because over the years I've never seen any real evidence to suggest this was the case. There's actually an interview somewhere on this site with Ian Corlett were he mentions the Westwood dub being made due to "an entanglement of rights", or something to that effect.

Honestly, considering the fact that Toonami UK/AB Groupe were happy to ditch the main Ocean cast in favour of the less experienced Blue Water cast for GT and DB(effectively doing the exact same thing Funimation did in 1999), and later even use the Big Green dubs for the movies, I very much doubt they gave a damn about fan preference or consistency.

Also consider that the vast majority of the viewers were kids who wouldn't gain internet access for years. I very much doubt Cartoon Network UK would make a big decision like that based on what a small minority of older viewers were saying. It was most likely just a cheaper option and allowed them to dodge paying music royalties like you mentioned.

I told you once that it was Ocean themselves who decided to ditch the Vancouver voice cast for the Calgary cast to save money, not AB Groupe.

[90sDBZ]

The Ocean cast was brought back apparently due to fan demand.

Do you have a source for this? Because over the years I've never seen any real evidence to suggest this was the case. There's actually an interview somewhere on this site with Ian Corlett were he mentions the Westwood dub being made due to "an entanglement of rights", or something to that effect.

Honestly, considering the fact that Toonami UK/AB Groupe were happy to ditch the main Ocean cast in favour of the less experienced Blue Water cast for GT and DB(effectively doing the exact same thing Funimation did in 1999), and later even use the Big Green dubs for the movies, I very much doubt they gave a damn about fan preference or consistency.

Also consider that the vast majority of the viewers were kids who wouldn't gain internet access for years. I very much doubt Cartoon Network UK would make a big decision like that based on what a small minority of older viewers were saying. It was most likely just a cheaper option and allowed them to dodge paying music royalties like you mentioned.

I told you once that it was Ocean themselves who decided to ditch the Vancouver voice cast for the Calgary cast to save money, not AB Groupe.

But that's besides the point. If AB Groupe had wanted the Vancouver cast, they could have gotten them by paying Ocean more money. They were obviously the ones paying for these dubs to be produced, so they naturally would have had a say in something as major as a total cast replacement. It'd be like a shop stocking a certain brand of cake for years, only for the cake company to turn around and say at a certain point "Oh yeah by the way, the cake you've been paying for all this time is being replaced by something of much lower quality. Have fun paying us the same amount as ever for it".

And aside from that there already existed Ocean dubs of movies 1-3, but AB Groupe still opted to use the Big Green dub in favour of them. I think that says a lot about their priorities.

[Scsigs]

It's entirely possible that they didn't see the point of getting the Ocean dub because FUNi's is so prevalent online.

Except, from what I've heard -- and pay attention this time, I've said it at least twice before now, -- they weren't given the option of getting the Ocean dub. That's why I suspect some kind of foul play.
Granted, there's no concrete evidence of this, but it's not hard to imagine Funimation asking Toei to give their dub preferential treatment in Europe -- or perhaps the UK in particular -- when it comes to English dubs. And it's not too much of a stretch from there to imagine Funimation asking the licensors to not offer the Ocean dub to the UK.

You're being a bit malicious to FUNi for absolutely NO reason. FUNimation has never had preference on what gets shown outside the US for dubs of the shows they have the license for, or at least have never shown this kind of attitude. Why would they? Besides residuals from their actor's recordings being used, & possibly the writers getting paid for their script writings, there's not really a lot of profit to be made, especially since they only own the recordings to their dub, which can easily be taken away should Toei decide to yank the license from them & give it to another studio.

Then again, if anyone else has listened to Geekdom101's interview with MasakoX, when Z ran on TV over a decade ago, Masako said that their airing of Z was really weird. For one stretch of episodes, they'd apparently get the Ocean dub, then for another stretch, it'd be the FUNi dub, so it's not like the UK market has NEVER heard FUNi's actors before.

He says that in the interview, but I don't remember it like that. It's possible I was just too young at the time though, and a lot of people do mention this, so my current theory is that during the Androids and Cell sagas, Ocean sometimes couldn't get their tapes to the UK in time. Anyway though, even if the initial airings switched around a little, all re-airings of 1-53 and 108-276 used the Ocean dub only. I am certain of this.
Besides, if it turns out MasakoX is wrong about it, it wouldn't be the first time he's been inconsistent about which dub he says he saw. He's talked a few times about how the version of GT we got in the UK was the Blue Water version, which had far superior scripts to Funimation's, kept the original music, and aired all 64 episodes from the beginning. But in his interview with Megami33, he specifically said that the version that first aired for him was the Funimation version...

This fan on another board I found http://dbzf.co.uk/single/?p=8825383&t=8430242 said something similar to Masako, where the FUNi dub of the early Fusion saga episodes was used rather than Ocean's for a bit, so there's obviously something to Masako's recollections, even if they might not all be true. It's true that people should take some things he says with a grain of salt, like what he says about Dragon Ball Minus being able to work with the Bardock special despite too many discontinuities between the two, as well as what's usually been shown for when Goku landed on Earth, but it's his recollections & memory is a tricky thing sometimes, like some people being hit hard by nostalgia when it comes to the dub of Z being a great dub as opposed to Kai's (my opinion here; it's ok for the time & standards it was dubbed at, but doesn't hold a candle to Kai's on most fronts) because they saw it when they were kids. You don't remember it the same way, but there's not a lot of proving that Masako's memory is any less valid than yours in this case.

There's a lot of misinformation in there, which is understandable, given how much of this stuff is poorly explained (Or not explained at all) online. I myself am still a little hazy on some details, but allow me to share what I do know...
The second run of the Ocean dub from episodes 108-276 originally didn't air in Canada. Canada didn't actually switch to Ocean until the mid-Cell Games saga. The Canadian content thing was a bonus, and that's why Canada switched to using the Canadian dubs starting from mid-Cell Games, but up until that point, the Westwood run of the Ocean dub was actually only produced for European territories like the UK.
I suspect Canada's switch to the Ocean dub was a major contributor to the higher budget during the Boo arc, although this is just speculation on my part.

You are right that the Ocean dub didn't initially air in Canada. From my own research, it was made as a cheaper alternative for places like the UK to offer a dub at a cheaper price.
However, the thing about Canadian broadcasting laws...yeah, that was a major contributor to them showing it instead of FUNi's dub in Canada. Most content shown on Canadian television has to be from a Canadian production there, & they're notoriously low budget in some areas, so that's why the production quality was relatively low for the majority of it.

You say the scripts were sourced from Funimation as if that's a new development; the original Saban run of the Ocean dub had scripts from Funimation. And just like with the Saban run, Funimation had their video masters, initial scripts (Re-translated from Mexican Spanish, and rather poorly at that), and M&E tracks given to them from Mexico, which were then sent to Canada along with adapted scripts to be dubbed.

No, I was simply stating it because it's a fact. I just didn't go into as much detail as you did. Also, I just assumed that they had Saban's translation team translate the Japanese audio, since they had started coming around on Power Rangers at the time with translating the Sentai episodes & plots better, with adapting them into Power Rangers better as well. Though I have heard the Mexican Spanish dub of Z is really good, so if they translated from those scripts, all right. I just thought that they got only the footage from Mexico, though if they did get the translations from them too, that would make a lot of sense considering I've read that they outsourced the script writing to another company. It would also account for the terrible, but half accurate, translations & scripts & the mistranslations that they got back then.

The two Blue Water dubs were the only time they used their own scripts, although really it was just GT that did that (Blue Water's OG DB dub is an odd thing script-wise. A third of the time, the dialogue is the exact same as the Funimation dub, a third of the time it's completely different, and a third of the time it's in an odd middle-ground. I suspect Blue Water's DB dub used the same Spanish>English rough translations Funimation were given, which the Blue Water script adaptors then did their own work on separate from Funimation. I'd guess the way this works is the third that's the same as Funimation is what was well-translated on the Spanish>English scripts, the third that's completely different was a mess the different script adaptors took different approaches at fixing, and the third that's an odd middle-ground is probably down to the different approaches the two dubbing houses took to censorship, and general dubbing convention(In episode of 1 Blue Water Dragon Ball, when Bulma asks Goku for his name, he says "It's Goku. Well, Son Goku, actually."). GT, however, was an entirely new translation from the original Japanese scripts).

Yeah, that's about how I thought it went for those dubs.

[NitroEX]

The Ocean cast was brought back apparently due to fan demand.

Do you have a source for this? Because over the years I've never seen any real evidence to suggest this was the case. There's actually an interview somewhere on this site with Ian Corlett were he mentions the Westwood dub being made due to "an entanglement of rights", or something to that effect.

I used the word "apparently" because there is no solid proof, not until Cartoon Network or AB decide to spill the beans but that isn't likely to ever happen, especially at this stage.

That being said, the fact that the situation happened at all seems to be a pretty big indication that someone wanted them back. I find it hard to imagine that viewers weren't disgruntled by the initial voice change and weren't speaking up about it in letters and emails, US fans had no problem voicing displeasure when the voice change occurred in 1999 so it wouldn't have been the first time. The only argument I've seen against this is to the effect of "the Westwood dub was the cheaper option" but we know for a fact that the dub was using union actors so they were at least paying more money than Funimation were for their cast. The only areas their dub could have saved money was in music production and script writing but both of those things wouldn't have been doable on their schedule even if they wanted to, Cartoon Network didn't want to keep their viewers waiting. Subzero Ice also left a post a long time ago stating that the head of programming at Turner confirmed they lost viewers when the Funimation version of the Fusion saga aired in the UK. Now that might be an unproven claim (although, realistically, how could one prove that without severing any professional relationship and still maintain anonymity?) but he did seem to have inside sources on a few things so until CN/Turner or AB say otherwise, I'm willing to take that into consideration at least, and the fact still remains that Cartoon Network would have had to have paid for those Fusion saga episodes twice. They must've had an incentive to do something like that because it doesn't make logical sense otherwise. The most likely conclusion is that the Ocean voices were what UK viewers wanted at the time.

I've not heard of this Ian Corlett interview but I would be interested in hearing/reading it. The "entanglement of rights" bit just seems to be his brief way of explaining the ownership that AB Group had over Dragon Ball in Europe and the UK at the time but I could be wrong. I'm not sure how he'd be privy to that type of info anyway considering he was't involved by that point.

Honestly, considering the fact that Toonami UK/AB Groupe were happy to ditch the main Ocean cast in favour of the less experienced Blue Water cast for GT and DB(effectively doing the exact same thing Funimation did in 1999), and later even use the Big Green dubs for the movies, I very much doubt they gave a damn about fan preference or consistency.

Well, in the case of the Blue Water dubs, those were a slightly different case. Funimation ditched the Ocean cast during the same series, GT and DB were technically different shows and were unproven to AB & CN, they might have retained the Dragon Ball name but viewers (and the companies in charge) could see their tone and style was going to be very different and could predict that viewers might not like it as much. I could imagine them seeing those shows as more of a risk whereas Z (with the Ocean cast) was always a safe bet for consistently good ratings. I'm just speculating here but maybe that could've factored into CN offering less money for those dubs than they did for Z or perhaps AB were the ones skimping out on the budget, afraid that it wouldn't make as much money for them as Z did. That's just a few possible explanation for it, although I have also heard that Ocean's boss was responsible for cutting the budget himself and moving the production to Calgary but why he felt the need to that is still unclear to me. The actors have apparently said they expected to continue after Z but plans changed last minute so the whole thing is rather odd.

As for the Big Green dubs, I've heard that those might've been in production around the same time as the Westwood dub was. I couldn't find the exact dates but I believe that the Netherlands got practically all the DVD releases of the Big Green dub thanks to a company called Bridge Entertainment, this would've been during the same time as the Westwood broadcasts were happening which makes me think they might've been made primarily for that market with the UK only being an afterthought. The UK TV premiere of the movies happened in 2005, I believe, so It's possible that by that point AB Groupe didn't expect Toonami UK to pay them for the DBZ movies. When Toonami finally did, AB probably just gave them what they had already produced, which just so happened to be the Big Green versions. Maybe if they knew ahead of time that a DBZ movie marathon was being planned, they could have prepared Ocean versions somehow. It would have cost less money and time to dub those than either GT or Dragon Ball for example so it's strange to me that they didn't think to do that.

And aside from that there already existed Ocean dubs of movies 1-3, but AB Groupe still opted to use the Big Green dub in favour of them. I think that says a lot about their priorities.

Didn't Pioneer still own the rights to those movies at that point? I know Funimation were still involved in those dubs as producers but I'm pretty sure they couldn't distribute them independently from Pioneer until their rights expired. Maybe that complicated things for AB.

[8000 Saiyan]

Except, from what I've heard -- and pay attention this time, I've said it at least twice before now, -- they weren't given the option of getting the Ocean dub. That's why I suspect some kind of foul play.
Granted, there's no concrete evidence of this, but it's not hard to imagine Funimation asking Toei to give their dub preferential treatment in Europe -- or perhaps the UK in particular -- when it comes to English dubs. And it's not too much of a stretch from there to imagine Funimation asking the licensors to not offer the Ocean dub to the UK.

Why would Funimation do that? I doubt they'd do something like that.

I have also heard that Ocean's boss was responsible for cutting the budget himself and moving the production to Calgary but why he felt the need to that is still unclear to me.

Ken Morrison is known for being a cheap bastard in the Vancouver voice acting community. For example, at first, the Vancouver voice actors were going to dub G Gundam, but then they were replaced by the Calgary cast because Morrison didn't want to pay the Vancouver voice actors the minimum wage and basically save money. Ironically, Morrison had signed a contract that pays to the actors the minimum wage.

The same thing happened with Dragon Ball GT. In late 2002/early 2003, the casting had been completed. The actors had signed a non-disclosure agreement, and were not permitted to talk about their characters, or internal workings of Ocean Sound. In March 2003, a very prominent voice actor says that he’d like to see “the talent Calgary can pull out of its ass.” Then GT airs, but with the Blue Water cast. In response to this, the voice actor said: “I was wondering what happened to that. Ken Morrison will get his someday.”

Since Morrison paid little to the voice actors, it's no wonder why Ian James Corlett left dubbing.

[NitroEX]

Why would Funimation do that? I doubt they'd do something like that.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the idea that they interfered in the Kix negotiations but since when are Funimation Saints all of a sudden? They're a business and their goal is to make as much money as possible, if they see an opportunity to get their dub on TV in a country previously dominated by a rival distribution company then it makes absolute sense for them to try and do that. You might not be aware of this but Funimation has historically always had very little market share in the UK. Aside from DBZ, none of their popular anime dubs were even shown on TV here, it was only Bandai, Pioneer, 4Kids, TMS Entertainment and Saban stuff for the most part. It's only in recent years thanks to local anime distributors like MangaUK and streaming services like Netflix that their products started gradually being brought over here. Obviously, their acquisitions of hot anime licenses from dead US distributors such as Pioneer and Bandai, as well as new ones from Japan, helped them expand naturally but on their own, they seemed to have a very tough time trying (and failing) to get into the UK market. I think it's perfectly reasonable to have some skepticism and curiosity when a company like that is able to get airtime in a country that previously only aired the competing product (Ocean Dragon Ball), albeit on a smaller channel this time (Kix—which I suspect has more to do with it), rather than Turner/CN, but it was a strange and unexpected development at the time, particularly when it seems the Canadian version, the version we've always had, seems as though it may have been blocked.

At the end of the day, I think many people in this community conflate being fans of Dragon Ball with also being fans of Funimation. They're just a business and there's no real reason not to be skeptical about the things they do. Not saying they're always doing bad things but they've done enough questionable things in the past so it would be naive of me to trust them completely all the time. I treat them the same way I treat any other anime distributor or company.

I have also heard that Ocean's boss was responsible for cutting the budget himself and moving the production to Calgary but why he felt the need to that is still unclear to me.

Ken Morrison is known for being a cheap bastard in the Vancouver voice acting community. For example, at first, the Vancouver voice actors were going to dub G Gundam, but then they were replaced by the Calgary cast because Morrison didn't want to pay the Vancouver voice actors the minimum wage and basically save money. Ironically, Morrison had signed a contract that pays to the actors the minimum wage.

The same thing happened with Dragon Ball GT. In late 2002/early 2003, the casting had been completed. The actors had signed a non-disclosure agreement, and were not permitted to talk about their characters, or internal workings of Ocean Sound. In March 2003, a very prominent voice actor says that he’d like to see “the talent Calgary can pull out of its ass.” Then GT airs, but with the Blue Water cast. In response to this, the voice actor said: “I was wondering what happened to that. Ken Morrison will get his someday.”

Since Morrison paid little to the voice actors, it's no wonder why Ian James Corlett left dubbing.

If you're going to start slinging mud at the man and his company, you'd best back it up with a source of some kind. Also, going by your logic, since the Ocean cast was paid more than the Funimation cast, shouldn't you be calling Funimation "cheap bastards"? I think Dale Kelly would agree with that sentiment judging from his past experience with them.

I have my doubts Funimation was responsible for Kix not having the option of airing the Ocean dub. I'm not saying its impossible, I just think it would be an unwise move when they paid Ocean to do the edits for the Nicktoons version of Kai. Yes there is the financial benefit for Funimation to have their dub aired in as many English-speaking countries as possible but if Ocean found out there was any foul play it could cause Funimation could lose them as a business partner for future projects.

I think we're beyond the point of Funimation feeling the need to work with Ocean at all, to be honest. They've already demonstrated that they can crowdfund a redub of an older Ocean dubbed anime using only Texas actors, which is a cheaper option than paying Ocean to return, and it will still be a success for them. If Funimation requires more talent, they outsource from LA with companies like Bang Zoom, again, because it's probably cheaper than Ocean. The smaller distance between companies probably factors into them having a closer personal relationship too, unlike Ocean who are much farther away. To my knowledge, only companies like Crunchy Roll, Viz Media, and Toei themselves are still willing to pay Ocean for major anime dubs, the rest are mostly glorified toy advertisements (although they probably pay just the same). Funimation is big enough at this point to where they can do everything in-house (as demonstrated with Kai TFC) so unless the dubbing load somehow becomes too much for them to handle, remaining in good standing with Ocean probably isn't their highest priority anymore.

[8000 Saiyan]

Well, Nitro, I got my source from here:
http://www.toonzone.net/forums/threads/ ... 411/page-3
The guy who knows all of this information got it from an article from http://www.ocean-db.net and a post on DBZOA.

[90sDBZ]

The Ocean cast was brought back apparently due to fan demand.

Do you have a source for this? Because over the years I've never seen any real evidence to suggest this was the case. There's actually an interview somewhere on this site with Ian Corlett were he mentions the Westwood dub being made due to "an entanglement of rights", or something to that effect.

I used the word "apparently" because there is no solid proof, not until Cartoon Network or AB decide to spill the beans but that isn't likely to ever happen, especially at this stage.

That being said, the fact that the situation happened at all seems to be a pretty big indication that someone wanted them back. I find it hard to imagine that viewers weren't disgruntled by the initial voice change and weren't speaking up about it in letters and emails, US fans had no problem voicing displeasure when the voice change occurred in 1999 so it wouldn't have been the first time. The only argument I've seen against this is to the effect of "the Westwood dub was the cheaper option" but we know for a fact that the dub was using union actors so they were at least paying more money than Funimation were for their cast. The only areas their dub could have saved money was in music production and script writing but both of those things wouldn't have been doable on their schedule even if they wanted to, Cartoon Network didn't want to keep their viewers waiting. Subzero Ice also left a post a long time ago stating that the head of programming at Turner confirmed they lost viewers when the Funimation version of the Fusion saga aired in the UK. Now that might be an unproven claim (although, realistically, how could one prove that without severing any professional relationship and still maintain anonymity?) but he did seem to have inside sources on a few things so until CN/Turner or AB say otherwise, I'm willing to take that into consideration at least, and the fact still remains that Cartoon Network would have had to have paid for those Fusion saga episodes twice. They must've had an incentive to do something like that because it doesn't make logical sense otherwise. The most likely conclusion is that the Ocean voices were what UK viewers wanted at the time.

I've not heard of this Ian Corlett interview but I would be interested in hearing/reading it. The "entanglement of rights" bit just seems to be his brief way of explaining the ownership that AB Group had over Dragon Ball in Europe and the UK at the time but I could be wrong. I'm not sure how he'd be privy to that type of info anyway considering he was't involved by that point.

Honestly, considering the fact that Toonami UK/AB Groupe were happy to ditch the main Ocean cast in favour of the less experienced Blue Water cast for GT and DB(effectively doing the exact same thing Funimation did in 1999), and later even use the Big Green dubs for the movies, I very much doubt they gave a damn about fan preference or consistency.

Well, in the case of the Blue Water dubs, those were a slightly different case. Funimation ditched the Ocean cast during the same series, GT and DB were technically different shows and were unproven to AB & CN, they might have retained the Dragon Ball name but viewers (and the companies in charge) could see their tone and style was going to be very different and could predict that viewers might not like it as much. I could imagine them seeing those shows as more of a risk whereas Z (with the Ocean cast) was always a safe bet for consistently good ratings. I'm just speculating here but maybe that could've factored into CN offering less money for those dubs than they did for Z or perhaps AB were the ones skimping out on the budget, afraid that it wouldn't make as much money for them as Z did. That's just a few possible explanation for it, although I have also heard that Ocean's boss was responsible for cutting the budget himself and moving the production to Calgary but why he felt the need to that is still unclear to me. The actors have apparently said they expected to continue after Z but plans changed last minute so the whole thing is rather odd.

As for the Big Green dubs, I've heard that those might've been in production around the same time as the Westwood dub was. I couldn't find the exact dates but I believe that the Netherlands got practically all the DVD releases of the Big Green dub thanks to a company called Bridge Entertainment, this would've been during the same time as the Westwood broadcasts were happening which makes me think they might've been made primarily for that market with the UK only being an afterthought. The UK TV premiere of the movies happened in 2005, I believe, so It's possible that by that point AB Groupe didn't expect Toonami UK to pay them for the DBZ movies. When Toonami finally did, AB probably just gave them what they had already produced, which just so happened to be the Big Green versions. Maybe if they knew ahead of time that a DBZ movie marathon was being planned, they could have prepared Ocean versions somehow. It would have cost less money and time to dub those than either GT or Dragon Ball for example so it's strange to me that they didn't think to do that.

And aside from that there already existed Ocean dubs of movies 1-3, but AB Groupe still opted to use the Big Green dub in favour of them. I think that says a lot about their priorities.

Didn't Pioneer still own the rights to those movies at that point? I know Funimation were still involved in those dubs as producers but I'm pretty sure they couldn't distribute them independently from Pioneer until their rights expired. Maybe that complicated things for AB.

Well one key difference between Season 3 airing in the US and the UK was that the UK had barely any wait for it. Z premiered on CN UK in March 2000 and we got to the Trunks saga by Autumn. Many shows often pick up viewers as they go along and through reruns, rather than having their whole audience established right off the bat. This would make it very possible for UK viewers to be exposed to either cast first depending on where they started watching. If they happened to start watching around Season 3 (which aired pretty quickly after the shows premiere unlike the US), then the switch in voice cast wouldn't bother them. In the US fans had years of constant reruns of Season 1 and 2 to get the Ocean cast firmly engraved in their brains. The situation in the UK was pretty different.

As far as Subzero Ice is concerned, I won't deny that the guy has provided some accurate information, but it's important to bear in mind that he has quite a personal preference for the Ocean cast himself, so I'll take what he says with a grain of salt when it comes to TV ratings over a few weeks from well over a decade ago. And regarding the whole Fusion saga situation, even if they really did lose viewers we need to factor in correlation and causation. For a start those Fusion saga episodes were the first to air on CNX, which was the first time DBZ was airing outside of the kids section. The fact that CNX itself only lasted 9 months speaks for itself. Another problem was viewers who's Sky subscription covered Cartoon Network and the kids section didn't cover CNX, so they basically missed out on that channel completely.

It's also very common for ratings of a single show to be up and down from one week to another. I'm sure a vocal Ocean fan such as Subzero Ice would be all too quick to blame the brief dub switch for any decline in ratings, regardless of any other factors.

Here's that interview with Corlett anyway:
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/2000/10/15/al ... -responds/

As far as CN UK paying for the same episodes twice, I think the most likely explanation is that they'd already paid for the production of those episodes (Westwood dub), but for whatever reason it wasn't ready in time for CNX to air on its premiere, so they went to Funimation. I know a member here posted a few years back that he emailed them at the time and they said that they'd only licensed Funimation's dub for a limited run. This makes the most sense because if they'd stuck with Funimation's dub at that point, they'd need to continue paying Faulconer royalties for those episodes for the years of reruns that were to come which would probably be more expensive in the long run. Plus it would be really weird always having the dub change for the Fusion saga and then go back to Ocean yet again for the Kid Buu saga every time they aired reruns. And I honestly can't see why else they'd randomly change to Funimation at that point if it had been intended as permanent and not an unforeseen thing.

For Ocean's movies 1-3, Toonami US was able to air them so there's no reason why AB couldn't have worked out a deal if they'd really wanted to.

[Scsigs]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to have some skepticism and curiosity when a company like that is able to get airtime in a country that previously only aired the competing product (Ocean Dragon Ball), albeit on a smaller channel this time (Kix—which I suspect has more to do with it), rather than Turner/CN, but it was a strange and unexpected development at the time, particularly when it seems the Canadian version, the version we've always had, seems as though it may have been blocked.
At the end of the day, I think many people in this community conflate being fans of Dragon Ball with also being fans of Funimation. They're just a business and there's no real reason not to be skeptical about the things they do. Not saying they're always doing bad things but they've done enough questionable things in the past so it would be naive of me to trust them completely all the time. I treat them the same way I treat any other anime distributor or company.

Except, it's the distributor's option in other countries for what dub they go with, or if they fund a redub, same with a company who gets an anime, do they redub it, or reuse the audio from the already completed dub? It all depends. Luckily, FUNi has, largely, kept the dubs from the older shows & movies they've gotten the licenses for when it would've been MUCH easier to simply redub the show if they wanted. Then again, it would've also cost them more money than they were probably willing to spend, minus Escaflowne, where they DID redub it & its movie, though that was done through Kickstarter. Plus, there probably would've been some kind of backlash towards the idea from fans of those shows & movies' dubs as well, so it was probably better for them to simply reuse the dub audio from the older dubs.
As you said, though, they've had little market share in the UK & it's only been in the last several years that their dubs have gotten distributed there. Why do you even think this is? The only reason the Ocean dub was even switched over to in the UK was because they wanted a cheaper alternative to FUNi's dub, so they had Ocean redub everything based on FUNi's scripts because the costs were too high for them at the time. Which means that if they really didn't want the Ocean dub over there, either some outside force made them not get it, or maybe the licensing costs weren't so high this time around for them, or that Manga Entertainment already has a decent working relationship with FUNi, since they license many of their dubs to distribute over there, so it's entirely possible they didn't see the point of getting the Ocean dub if FUNi's dub was already complete & just as affordable. At this point, I'd bet on Canada's broadcasting laws forcing them to broadcast Kai with the Ocean dub than anything.
And even then, they've done some really great things towards their dub releases over the years, like on Cowboy Bebop's Blu-Rays & DVDs with getting interviews from the main 4 voice actors & having them do a dinner conversation thing for the extra features, which was a really nice touch for such a seminal anime, so it's most likely that they didn't expect their Kai dub to be shown overseas either until it happened.

I have my doubts Funimation was responsible for Kix not having the option of airing the Ocean dub. I'm not saying its impossible, I just think it would be an unwise move when they paid Ocean to do the edits for the Nicktoons version of Kai. Yes there is the financial benefit for Funimation to have their dub aired in as many English-speaking countries as possible but if Ocean found out there was any foul play it could cause Funimation could lose them as a business partner for future projects.

I think we're beyond the point of Funimation feeling the need to work with Ocean at all, to be honest. They've already demonstrated that they can crowdfund a redub of an older Ocean dubbed anime using only Texas actors, which is a cheaper option than paying Ocean to return, and it will still be a success for them. If Funimation requires more talent, they outsource from LA with companies like Bang Zoom, again, because it's probably cheaper than Ocean. The smaller distance between companies probably factors into them having a closer personal relationship too, unlike Ocean who are much farther away. To my knowledge, only companies like Crunchy Roll, Viz Media, and Toei themselves are still willing to pay Ocean for major anime dubs, the rest are mostly glorified toy advertisements (although they probably pay just the same). Funimation is big enough at this point to where they can do everything in-house (as demonstrated with Kai TFC) so unless the dubbing load somehow becomes too much for them to handle, remaining in good standing with Ocean probably isn't their highest priority anymore.

Except, I think someone mentioned that FUNi had them edit Kai for Nicktoons when it aired on that channel. On the topic of outsourcing their actors, they've already done that. They regularly have actors come all the way to Texas from California to record their dubs. They even have Sean Schemmel record Super's dub from Cali over the phone in a recording studio with Sabat directing him. I have a feeling they could do the same thing if they wanted any actors from Canada to be in their dubs if they choose to do that. The thing, though, is that Canada's Ocean studio usually has mostly union actors & FUNi's decidedly nonunion. Nonunion actors get paid for the hours they work, but don't get residuals, or the same rates, like union actors do, so it's cheaper for LA studios who have voice acting for American cartoons to outsource their voice acting to Canada than a nonunion production most of the time, because of the lower wages. Even then, they've mostly slowed down on outsourcing dubs to Canada for the most part.
Besides, FUNi rarely outsources their dubs outside of shows like Hellsing, which was already dubbed by a different company by the time they got the license, & they wanted to get the actors back to maintain consistency & keep the fanbase happy, as well as the Cowboy Bebop thing I've already mentioned. I'm not saying FUNi is a saint company either, but I don't think you're giving them enough credit here.

[ButtfaceKalinski]

Wow you guys are on some real inside baseball stuff here. One of the reasons GT went to Calgary as I recall was that clients were beginning to ask for internet use on shows being produced, but there was nothing in the UBCP animation agreement about that and the union was ABYSMALLY slow in responding to it. When they did respond to it they made some silly initial extra rights buyout offer in excess of 100% and didn't budge.

It became a pissing contest between producers and the union, but the union reps were useless at collective bargaining at that time for whatever reason, and the producers wouldn't budge either. Of course one of the producers had a satellite studio that could work for cheap... It didn't get dealt with for months and it resulted in a lot of work leaving Vancouver, not just cheap ADR stuff to Calgary, larger productions vanished because of an inability to negotiate internet use. Terrible time for working actors.

[Super Sayian Prime]

I think we're beyond the point of Funimation feeling the need to work with Ocean at all, to be honest. They've already demonstrated that they can crowdfund a redub of an older Ocean dubbed anime using only Texas actors, which is a cheaper option than paying Ocean to return, and it will still be a success for them. If Funimation requires more talent, they outsource from LA with companies like Bang Zoom, again, because it's probably cheaper than Ocean. The smaller distance between companies probably factors into them having a closer personal relationship too, unlike Ocean who are much farther away. To my knowledge, only companies like Crunchy Roll, Viz Media, and Toei themselves are still willing to pay Ocean for major anime dubs, the rest are mostly glorified toy advertisements (although they probably pay just the same). Funimation is big enough at this point to where they can do everything in-house (as demonstrated with Kai TFC) so unless the dubbing load somehow becomes too much for them to handle, remaining in good standing with Ocean probably isn't their highest priority anymore.

Funimation has used Ocean more recently than Viz has (Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail vs. InuYasha: The Final Act). Despite not having any internal production facilities, Viz has pretty much moved exclusively to LA dubs. Even franchises that were dubbed in Canada, like HunterxHunter and Sailor Moon, have gone to LA. Part of me wonders if Viz hasn't licensed the recent live action Death Note productions because they fear backlash for not getting Ocean to do them. Those things have surfaced in international markets, so it's not like they're unavailable to license.

Anime dubbing in Canada has seen a sharp increase in the last two-ish years, mostly due to the Canadian dollar bottoming to early 2000s level. You're right, though, that it has largely been at the hands of the Japanese production companies themselves. Sunrights/d-rights on B-Daman Fireblast/Beyblade Burst, Toei on World Trigger, Nippon Animation on Sinbad, TMS/Bushiroad on Cardfight Vanguard/Future Card Buddyfight, Tezuka Productions on Black Jack, and presumably NHK on Kingdom. It's not uncommon for these dubs to receive some funding from the Japanese government either.

[8000 Saiyan]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to have some skepticism and curiosity when a company like that is able to get airtime in a country that previously only aired the competing product (Ocean Dragon Ball), albeit on a smaller channel this time (Kix—which I suspect has more to do with it), rather than Turner/CN, but it was a strange and unexpected development at the time, particularly when it seems the Canadian version, the version we've always had, seems as though it may have been blocked.
At the end of the day, I think many people in this community conflate being fans of Dragon Ball with also being fans of Funimation. They're just a business and there's no real reason not to be skeptical about the things they do. Not saying they're always doing bad things but they've done enough questionable things in the past so it would be naive of me to trust them completely all the time. I treat them the same way I treat any other anime distributor or company.

Except, it's the distributor's option in other countries for what dub they go with, or if they fund a redub, same with a company who gets an anime, do they redub it, or reuse the audio from the already completed dub? It all depends. Luckily, FUNi has, largely, kept the dubs from the older shows & movies they've gotten the licenses for when it would've been MUCH easier to simply redub the show if they wanted. Then again, it would've also cost them more money than they were probably willing to spend, minus Escaflowne, where they DID redub it & its movie, though that was done through Kickstarter. Plus, there probably would've been some kind of backlash towards the idea from fans of those shows & movies' dubs as well, so it was probably better for them to simply reuse the dub audio from the older dubs.
As you said, though, they've had little market share in the UK & it's only been in the last several years that their dubs have gotten distributed there. Why do you even think this is? The only reason the Ocean dub was even switched over to in the UK was because they wanted a cheaper alternative to FUNi's dub, so they had Ocean redub everything based on FUNi's scripts because the costs were too high for them at the time. Which means that if they really didn't want the Ocean dub over there, either some outside force made them not get it, or maybe the licensing costs weren't so high this time around for them, or that Manga Entertainment already has a decent working relationship with FUNi, since they license many of their dubs to distribute over there, so it's entirely possible they didn't see the point of getting the Ocean dub if FUNi's dub was already complete & just as affordable. At this point, I'd bet on Canada's broadcasting laws forcing them to broadcast Kai with the Ocean dub than anything.
And even then, they've done some really great things towards their dub releases over the years, like on Cowboy Bebop's Blu-Rays & DVDs with getting interviews from the main 4 voice actors & having them do a dinner conversation thing for the extra features, which was a really nice touch for such a seminal anime, so it's most likely that they didn't expect their Kai dub to be shown overseas either until it happened.

I have my doubts Funimation was responsible for Kix not having the option of airing the Ocean dub. I'm not saying its impossible, I just think it would be an unwise move when they paid Ocean to do the edits for the Nicktoons version of Kai. Yes there is the financial benefit for Funimation to have their dub aired in as many English-speaking countries as possible but if Ocean found out there was any foul play it could cause Funimation could lose them as a business partner for future projects.

I think we're beyond the point of Funimation feeling the need to work with Ocean at all, to be honest. They've already demonstrated that they can crowdfund a redub of an older Ocean dubbed anime using only Texas actors, which is a cheaper option than paying Ocean to return, and it will still be a success for them. If Funimation requires more talent, they outsource from LA with companies like Bang Zoom, again, because it's probably cheaper than Ocean. The smaller distance between companies probably factors into them having a closer personal relationship too, unlike Ocean who are much farther away. To my knowledge, only companies like Crunchy Roll, Viz Media, and Toei themselves are still willing to pay Ocean for major anime dubs, the rest are mostly glorified toy advertisements (although they probably pay just the same). Funimation is big enough at this point to where they can do everything in-house (as demonstrated with Kai TFC) so unless the dubbing load somehow becomes too much for them to handle, remaining in good standing with Ocean probably isn't their highest priority anymore.

Except, I think someone mentioned that FUNi had them edit Kai for Nicktoons when it aired on that channel. On the topic of outsourcing their actors, they've already done that. They regularly have actors come all the way to Texas from California to record their dubs. They even have Sean Schemmel record Super's dub from Cali over the phone in a recording studio with Sabat directing him. I have a feeling they could do the same thing if they wanted any actors from Canada to be in their dubs if they choose to do that. The thing, though, is that Canada's Ocean studio usually has mostly union actors & FUNi's decidedly nonunion. Nonunion actors get paid for the hours they work, but don't get residuals, or the same rates, like union actors do, so it's cheaper for LA studios who have voice acting for American cartoons to outsource their voice acting to Canada than a nonunion production most of the time, because of the lower wages. Even then, they've mostly slowed down on outsourcing dubs to Canada for the most part.
Besides, FUNi rarely outsources their dubs outside of shows like Hellsing, which was already dubbed by a different company by the time they got the license, & they wanted to get the actors back to maintain consistency & keep the fanbase happy, as well as the Cowboy Bebop thing I've already mentioned. I'm not saying FUNi is a saint company either, but I don't think you're giving them enough credit here.

Eh, Nitro isn't a fan of Funimation as a dubbing company. I don't think he would give them any credit for anything.

[Scsigs]

I'm not saying FUNi is a saint company either, but I don't think you're giving them enough credit here.

Eh, Nitro isn't a fan of Funimation as a dubbing company. I don't think he would give them any credit for anything.

It would appear you're right.

[8000 Saiyan]

I'm not saying FUNi is a saint company either, but I don't think you're giving them enough credit here.

Eh, Nitro isn't a fan of Funimation as a dubbing company. I don't think he would give them any credit for anything.

It would appear you're right.

Oops, I made a mistake there. I think he'd give them credit for casting Chris Ayres.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

Eh, Nitro isn't a fan of Funimation as a dubbing company. I don't think he would give them any credit for anything.

It would appear you're right.

Oops, I made a mistake there. I think he'd give them credit for casting Chris Ayres.

Don't know why anyone wouldn't. Its not possible to get a better English Freeza than Chris Ayres. The guy is just phenomenal and he's continuing to kill it in Super. Of course I'm sure Lee Tockar probably did fantastic in this dub. I don't doubt his performance could have even been on par with Ayres but even if its terrific I doubt even the most ardent Ocean fan would question the casting of Ayres in the Funi dub.

[8000 Saiyan]

It would appear you're right.

Oops, I made a mistake there. I think he'd give them credit for casting Chris Ayres.

Don't know why anyone wouldn't. Its not possible to get a better English Freeza than Chris Ayres. The guy is just phenomenal and he's continuing to kill it in Super. Of course I'm sure Lee Tockar probably did fantastic in this dub. I don't doubt his performance could have even been on par with Ayres but even if its terrific I doubt even the most ardant Ocean fan would question the casting of Ayres in the Funi dub.

The people who don't give Funimation credit for casting him are just nostalgic for Young and Newstone. I give them all the credit for casting someone who captures what Nakao does. I don't there's one scene with Ayres' Frieza that is bad. The guy is 100% amazing in the role.

[NitroEX]

As far as Subzero Ice is concerned, I won't deny that the guy has provided some accurate information, but it's important to bear in mind that he has quite a personal preference for the Ocean cast himself, so I'll take what he says with a grain of salt

If his intentions were to lie and make up facts in order to win arguments on the internet, he would've tried a lot harder. Overall he came across very reasonable and I don't see how him having a preference for the Ocean cast discredits what he had to say. Being a fan of the Ocean cast is pretty much a given for most people with an intense interest in this Kai dub and it's not as if he was going around bashing Funi's dubs.

And regarding the whole Fusion saga situation, even if they really did lose viewers we need to factor in correlation and causation. For a start those Fusion saga episodes were the first to air on CNX, which was the first time DBZ was airing outside of the kids section. The fact that CNX itself only lasted 9 months speaks for itself. Another problem was viewers who's Sky subscription covered Cartoon Network and the kids section didn't cover CNX, so they basically missed out on that channel completely.

It's also very common for ratings of a single show to be up and down from one week to another. I'm sure a vocal Ocean fan such as Subzero Ice would be all too quick to blame the brief dub switch for any decline in ratings, regardless of any other factors.

You might perceive it as blaming the dub, but it was a perfectly reasonable assumption based on what actually happened, he just relayed information he allegedly received in a conversation with someone at Turner; the head of programming at the time. Obviously TV ratings are going to vary and be affected across the board due to the move to CNX, but what makes you think Turner themselves weren't also aware of this? The way I remember it, they aired old and new episodes of DBZ on the channel plus they also gave reruns to the Funi dubbed episodes of the fusion saga, I even recall seeing them play in the mornings before school and sometimes in the afternoons. This would have likely been a controlled experiment for them to compare ratings across all airings not just one incident, and a company like that most likely would've been smart enough to factor in lower initial ratings too, after all, they had other shows that would have been affected as well. Unless you want to accuse Turner of being biased, it doesn't make sense for them to have judged the Funi dubbed episodes to an impossible standard.

As for the Sky subscription issue, it seems like that may be blown that out of proportion as it didn't seem to be affecting many kids at the time, I certainly wasn't affected by it and neither were many at my school. For all we know it might have only been a minority of kids who didn't have the channel, they certainly advertised it enough before launch to give viewers enough time to prepare. I myself can only recall one friend having NTL and not being able to watch but everyone else was fine and were still discussing the latest episodes. Something else to remember is that CNX wasn't just being aimed at children, they had content on there aimed at drawing in older viewers too (similar to Adult Swim). Granted, those older viewers might not have been too interested in shows like DBZ but there would have certainly been a balance of old and new eyes watching at the channel's inception. Turner would have been aware of this and likely monitored data closely to follow trends.

As far as CN UK paying for the same episodes twice, I think the most likely explanation is that they'd already paid for the production of those episodes (Westwood dub), but for whatever reason it wasn't ready in time for CNX to air on its premiere, so they went to Funimation. I know a member here posted a few years back that he emailed them at the time and they said that they'd only licensed Funimation's dub for a limited run. This makes the most sense because if they'd stuck with Funimation's dub at that point, they'd need to continue paying Faulconer royalties for those episodes for the years of reruns that were to come which would probably be more expensive in the long run. Plus it would be really weird always having the dub change for the Fusion saga and then go back to Ocean yet again for the Kid Buu saga every time they aired reruns. And I honestly can't see why else they'd randomly change to Funimation at that point if it had been intended as permanent and not an unforeseen thing.

That seems like a plausible explanation, but it's still notable that they chose to go back to Ocean despite the lead Funi had in episode count. The music royalty thing could be a factor, but there's a chance that might have been the same for the Keenlyside & John mitchell music too. Just because music is recycled doesn't automatically mean it's not still being paid for whenever it's used. Funi said they learned this practice from Saban and Saban were reusing music too, just compare Digimon to Masked Rider and Princess Sissi.

For Ocean's movies 1-3, Toonami US was able to air them so there's no reason why AB couldn't have worked out a deal if they'd really wanted to.

Not necessarily. Pioneer were releasing the uncut movies in the US & Canada only so getting those versions on Toonami & YTV was essentially free advertising and benefitted both parties since Funi likely saw a cut of the DVD sales. AB Groupe probably had no connection with Pioneer and for them to acquire those movies might have been too expensive. Turner probably could've arranged for it but they evidently chose not to, the funding for their channel could've been very low by that point since it didn't stick around too long after that. I also don't recall hearing about the Pioneer movies airing on TV outside of the US or Canada, even in regions that aired the Funi dub of the series. I know some countries got the Saban/Funimation version of Tree of Might along with the in-house dubs but I'm not sure about the Pioneer movies.

The only reason the Ocean dub was even switched over to in the UK was because they wanted a cheaper alternative to FUNi's dub, so they had Ocean redub everything based on FUNi's scripts because the costs were too high for them at the time.

First of all, you don't know that for sure. Secondly, the reuse of scripts was most likely due to time constraints, not budget. Ocean translated their own scripts from scratch on GT when they were ahead of Funimation's dub. CN wasn't going to wait for them when it came to Z, and at the end of the day, if Funimation were charging more for their version of the same show and not pricing it competitively for international markets outside the US, then Funimation are ultimately the ones to blame for not being picked up in places like the UK. Objectively speaking, their dub used (at the time) no name/green actors and a largely unproven musician. Say what you want about the Ocean dub, it's actors or it's music, but they were (and still are) industry standard professionals used by those same clients for other shows. From CN/Turner's perspective, they were getting the better deal (that's IF the Funimation version was more expensive), because from their perspective, what would they have been paying extra for? Funimation only had the more preferable movie dubs (but that's not saying much when the competition is Big Green), the series was pretty even in quality.

Except, I think someone mentioned that FUNi had them edit Kai for Nicktoons when it aired on that channel.

I know, but that was back in 2010. The situation for Funimation has changed a lot since then and they've since expanded. I mentioned TFC because they're handling all the video post production themselves. in 2017 I suspect they wouldn't bother using Ocean's services anymore, even for a kids edit such as the Nicktoons version. I could be proven wrong here but it seems very unlikely with the Bang Zoom dub of Super being an option for an edited version of Super.

Funimation has used Ocean more recently than Viz has (Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail vs. InuYasha: The Final Act).

I am aware of Funimation using them for the Roberta's Blood Trail but the way I understand it, in that scenario, they were pretty much forced into it. Funimation acquired the Black Lagoon rights along with a bunch of other anime from Geneon and Geneon were the ones who cast and produced the first Black Lagoon dub with the Ocean cast, not Funimation. Since that dub was still fresh and beloved in the minds of Black Lagoon fans they likely felt an obligation to keep the same deal in place, or perhaps contracts with Ocean were still valid even after the Funimation deal, giving Funi no choice but to use them. Either way, the point is; based on their track record, Funimation wouldn't have cast an anime like Black Lagoon in Canada had they been the ones in charge from the beginning, they would have almost certainly done it cheaper in Texas if they could but they had no choice.

Eh, Nitro isn't a fan of Funimation as a dubbing company. I don't think he would give them any credit for anything.

I can speak for myself, thanks.

[90sDBZ]

As far as Subzero Ice is concerned, I won't deny that the guy has provided some accurate information, but it's important to bear in mind that he has quite a personal preference for the Ocean cast himself, so I'll take what he says with a grain of salt

If his intentions were to lie and make up facts in order to win arguments on the internet, he would've tried a lot harder. Overall he came across very reasonable and I don't see how him having a preference for the Ocean cast discredits what he had to say. Being a fan of the Ocean cast is pretty much a given for most people with an intense interest in this Kai dub and it's not as if he was going around bashing Funi's dubs.

And regarding the whole Fusion saga situation, even if they really did lose viewers we need to factor in correlation and causation. For a start those Fusion saga episodes were the first to air on CNX, which was the first time DBZ was airing outside of the kids section. The fact that CNX itself only lasted 9 months speaks for itself. Another problem was viewers who's Sky subscription covered Cartoon Network and the kids section didn't cover CNX, so they basically missed out on that channel completely.

It's also very common for ratings of a single show to be up and down from one week to another. I'm sure a vocal Ocean fan such as Subzero Ice would be all too quick to blame the brief dub switch for any decline in ratings, regardless of any other factors.

You might perceive it as blaming the dub, but it was a perfectly reasonable assumption based on what actually happened, he just relayed information he allegedly received in a conversation with someone at Turner; the head of programming at the time. Obviously TV ratings are going to vary and be affected across the board due to the move to CNX, but what makes you think Turner themselves weren't also aware of this? The way I remember it, they aired old and new episodes of DBZ on the channel plus they also gave reruns to the Funi dubbed episodes of the fusion saga, I even recall seeing them play in the mornings before school and sometimes in the afternoons. This would have likely been a controlled experiment for them to compare ratings across all airings not just one incident, and a company like that most likely would've been smart enough to factor in lower initial ratings too, after all, they had other shows that would have been affected as well. Unless you want to accuse Turner of being biased, it doesn't make sense for them to have judged the Funi dubbed episodes to an impossible standard.

As for the Sky subscription issue, it seems like that may be blown that out of proportion as it didn't seem to be affecting many kids at the time, I certainly wasn't affected by it and neither were many at my school. For all we know it might have only been a minority of kids who didn't have the channel, they certainly advertised it enough before launch to give viewers enough time to prepare. I myself can only recall one friend having NTL and not being able to watch but everyone else was fine and were still discussing the latest episodes. Something else to remember is that CNX wasn't just being aimed at children, they had content on there aimed at drawing in older viewers too (similar to Adult Swim). Granted, those older viewers might not have been too interested in shows like DBZ but there would have certainly been a balance of old and new eyes watching at the channel's inception. Turner would have been aware of this and likely monitored data closely to follow trends.

As far as CN UK paying for the same episodes twice, I think the most likely explanation is that they'd already paid for the production of those episodes (Westwood dub), but for whatever reason it wasn't ready in time for CNX to air on its premiere, so they went to Funimation. I know a member here posted a few years back that he emailed them at the time and they said that they'd only licensed Funimation's dub for a limited run. This makes the most sense because if they'd stuck with Funimation's dub at that point, they'd need to continue paying Faulconer royalties for those episodes for the years of reruns that were to come which would probably be more expensive in the long run. Plus it would be really weird always having the dub change for the Fusion saga and then go back to Ocean yet again for the Kid Buu saga every time they aired reruns. And I honestly can't see why else they'd randomly change to Funimation at that point if it had been intended as permanent and not an unforeseen thing.

That seems like a plausible explanation, but it's still notable that they chose to go back to Ocean despite the lead Funi had in episode count. The music royalty thing could be a factor, but there's a chance that might have been the same for the Keenlyside & John mitchell music too. Just because music is recycled doesn't automatically mean it's not still being paid for whenever it's used. Funi said they learned this practice from Saban and Saban were reusing music too, just compare Digimon to Masked Rider and Princess Sissi.

For Ocean's movies 1-3, Toonami US was able to air them so there's no reason why AB couldn't have worked out a deal if they'd really wanted to.

Not necessarily. Pioneer were releasing the uncut movies in the US & Canada only so getting those versions on Toonami & YTV was essentially free advertising and benefitted both parties since Funi likely saw a cut of the DVD sales. AB Groupe probably had no connection with Pioneer and for them to acquire those movies might have been too expensive. Turner probably could've arranged for it but they evidently chose not to, the funding for their channel could've been very low by that point since it didn't stick around too long after that. I also don't recall hearing about the Pioneer movies airing on TV outside of the US or Canada, even in regions that aired the Funi dub of the series. I know some countries got the Saban/Funimation version of Tree of Might along with the in-house dubs but I'm not sure about the Pioneer movies.

I still don't feel convinced by what Subzero Ice said regarding the ratings. It's going back a few years, but if I recall he suddenly came out with that claim in response to a comment I made to someone else regarding the fusion saga scenario. Like all of a sudden "Oh yeah I was in a meeting with the head of Turner and they said that Dragonball Z lost ratings during the brief switch to Funimation's dub during the Fusion saga way back in October 2002". Seems a bit too convenient to me but to each his own. The fact that he's an Ocean fan makes him a biased source to go by, even if he does have some degree of inside knowledge.

And I think you're stretching things a bit with your ratings experiment theory. Cartoon Network aired DBZ before, during, and after school in addition to evenings. Many other kids channels did the same with all their shows just to fill time slots or to let people catch up, so CNX doing the same really wasn't anything out of the ordinary.

You've already acknowledged what I said regarding both dubs being paid for as a plausible explanation. So if we can accept that the Funimation dub of those episodes on CNX was never going to be permanent then why would Turner bother studying and taking note which dub was doing better?

The Sky subscription thing is always going be one persons experience against the other. I was lucky enough to get the channel but most people I talk to mainly remember DBZ on Toonami UK and Cartoon Network UK but not CNX. If you go on Youtube the amount of CNX DBZ promos is actually quite limited despite them airing loads of them during the channel's short lifespan.

About them switching back to Ocean again, you also mentioned Funimation having a lead in episode count but that wasn't completely true in regards to the Kid Buu saga. The last few episodes of Ocean Z used French footage due to Funimation's dub falling behind Ocean's right before the end. Episodes are purchased and sent to networks in batches, so Ocean's Kid Buu saga was complete and ready for broadcast before Funimation's, which is also reflected in the US airing the Kid Buu saga awhile after the UK. And there's also the possibility that Funimation's version had to air in the US before being allowed to air in any other country anyway, and CNX being desperate for ratings needed new episodes of DBZ ASAP.