In some truly amazing planning on the part of Disney Channel's scheduling Gravity Falls Premieres episodes of Gravity Falls now. A show geared mostly to young children airs at 9pm on a Friday when they could be sleeping or just too tired or even at an event with there parents. Why not just 5pm?
Of note, Disney basically killed off it's Tron cartoon by putting new episodes past midnight.
One wonders why lose possible viewers with new content if it's already paid for episodes anyway. Best guess, Disney Channel is run by idiots or people who couldn't care less about thier animation divsion.
I don't think Disney's trying to kill the show, it's just mismanaging it to a level where it would die due to stupidity by upper management.