As with my previous thread I thought why not revisit the history of another Kai broadcast in its entirety? Its the show's 15th anniversary now and I really should have made an anniversary thread for when it was 10 years since Kix aired it in the UK (scary to think its been so long, and I was in college at the time).
The first we heard about Kai supposedly coming to the UK came on November 21, 2010 when a fan reportedly received an email back from Ken Morrison the head of Ocean Studios confirming they had accepted an offer for their dub to be shown, at the time on an unnamed channel the following year.
Whether this was an exchange from the Ken Morrison remains unclear, however curiously two months later Kix did respond to a question on Twitter about Kai. The channel's tweets are no longer available to view, but fans have quoted their words, which were "we're just looking at a screener of it, but no decisions made yet". The details of this screener were never made clear, but as we can see with how Kix's broadcasts unfolded, effectively flipping all the speculation on its head about which dub would be aired it is thought the channel were sampling both Funimation and Ocean's dubs of Kai to decide which version they think would be better for the channel.
CSC Media had purchased 53 episodes of Kai by the end of 2012, and while Kix (which was one of their 16 channels) could confirm for fans Kai was to air early in the new year no date was set in stone, moreover trade magazine ToyNews, which also had the show pencilled in for Q1 2013, and while this was true for the general premier UK and Irish fans did in fact get their Kai fix before the year was out, after the franchises 7-year hiatus from our screens as a sneak peak was announced for the first 6 episodes from December 26-28th with 2 episodes per day airing at 6pm and 6.30pm. This announcement also coincided with the first promo very strongly suggesting, Kix was to air Funimation's dub, although prior to the series launch it was definitively confirmed by Kix via email this was indeed the dub they would air, much to the disappointment of myself and many other fans who to this day long to see the Ocean dub of Kai.
To this day the true reason for Kix airing Funimation's dub, despite being aware of Ocean's dub remains a mystery. Allegedly TOEI gave them no other option, despite Kix's parent company CSC Media going for other shows with Ocean dubs like Scan2Go and Pretty Cure (another TOEI property) on Pop Girl, meaning a Canadian Kai dub would have been the perfect fit for any of their channels.
Kix was available on Sky 627 and freesat 606, meaning for the first time since Cartoon Network ceased airing Dragon Ball Z in 2002 the franchise was available to British Isles viewers on terrestrial TV (as all the series moved to the digital-only CNX and Toonami channels as of this point).
Prior to Kai's formal launch it was announced to be airing daily from January 6, 2013 with 1 episode at 8am, another at 6pm and a double bill repeat of both episodes from 9-10pm. Following the sneak peak in December Kai's general run on Kix began on January 5, 2013 with a double bill of the first 2 episodes at several timeslots 10am, 6pm and 9pm.
Kix aired 2 episodes a day from this point, leading to some concern among fans they would run through the 53 episodes too quick, although as noted this was a common thing for their programming and not unique to Kai. This first run of episodes 1-53 concluded in a month. Here's a review of the first 17 episodes following their broadcast:
Spoiler:
On May 27, 2013 Kai was briefly removed from Kix's weekly schedule in Sky TV guides for the following week. However customers with TV guides that listed further dates were made aware Kai was being moved to weekends only, likely to make room for programming with new episodes during the week, although it was later revealed from July 22nd Kix was bringing Kai back to weekday slots and was to run the show from the beginning before moving on to the new episodes with episodes shown every day at 8:30am, 12pm and 8pm. There was also triple bills at weekends.
When it comes to reruns the Freeza arc was only shown once on Kix by summer 2013, as they generally reran the Saiyan arc and early Namek episodes. From the week beginning June 3, 2013 Kai was moved to the 9-10pm timeslot at weekends, although during this timeslot Kix would rerun the series from the Ginyu episodes rather than episode 1.
Kai received great ratings throughout its run, being in the top 10 several times during airings of the first episodes according to BARB and peaked at number 2. The largest audience recorded for the early episodes was 57,000 viewers on January 13, 2013 where it came in third place and an average of 43,000 viewers during the week when it was the most watched program five times. Kai was moved to the 8:30-9:30pm timeslot sometime in its first few months and only moved down a few places from its position at number 2 for Kix's top rated shows (viewtopic.php?t=23680#p658246). Kai also won several Clash of the Champions vote marathons during the summer.
By August 2013 BARB's ratings listed Kai as Kix's number 1 show with 39,000 views. Once Kix reached the Cell Games Dragon Ball Kai became their number 1 show once more with 43,000 views and with 47,000 views the month after.
Shortly before July 22, 2013 fans were informed by Kix to stay tuned for something exciting with many anticipating them continuing where they left off at episode 53 rather than restarting the series from the beginning. That said the very first episode was aired on this day at the 12pm, but Kix later confirmed it was a technical error and that the new episode (which was episode 54) would premier at 8pm. Episodes 54-75 then ran between that point and August 22, 2013, although images of Super Saiyan 2 Gohan and Perfect Cell were shown on their website, implying they already had the rights to further episodes, but these were quickly taken down. The earlier episodes continued to be aired at different timeslots when episodes 54-75 were premiering.
After a short break Kix was to resume airing new episodes of Kai on October 1, 2013, although instead they began rerunning the show from episodes 55-75, but the arc began soon after.
On November 27, 2013 Kai finished its first run on Kix with episode 98 with episode 1 following the next day and on December 23, 2013 Kix aired a marathon of Kai from 9am-4:30pm for 3 days straight.
Following the conclusion of Kai, Kix went through a long period of only rerunning the Saiyan and Freeza arcs, despite the later material being shown in full. The channel held double bills of Kai every night at 10:30pm towards the end of 2015 and while the first two arcs were still in constant reruns the Android and Cell episodes were just shown occasionally and the show finally left Kix for good in November of that year just a few months after the series became available for the home video market with Manga UK's DVDs and Blu-Rays.
Anyone here have any memories of watching Kai on Kix? I got to watch a good few episodes but not the entire run as I was in college, but it was great to have the series back on UK and Irish airwaves after what had felt like an eternity.
