News from Nickelodeon
Jeff Harris
Nick launching five new kids series: Nickelodeon will air more than 300 new
episodes of original kids series in 1999, including 85 hours of five new
original series that will launch in the third or fourth quarter next year,
said Cyma Zarghami, executive vice president and general manager of
Nickelodeon, Tuesday. Nickelodeon's 1999 program slate--estimated to cost
"tens of millions of dollars" by Nickelodeon Senior Vice President of
Production Kevin Kay--will include "Stray Dog" (working title), a
live-action series produced by Lynch Entertainment; "Rocket Beach," an
animated series from Nickelodeon and Klasky Csupo; and "SpongeBob
SquarePants," an animated series from Nicktoon productions. Nickelodeon is
also producing approximately 260 new episodes of returning kids series "Are
You Afraid of the Dark?" from Nickelodeon and Cinar Films, which relaunches
Feb. 6, and "Little Bill," an animated series based on actor Bill Cosby's
children's books. Nickelodeon also has given the green light to produce
pilots for seven other kids series. Pilots include live-action "The Amanda
Bynes Show," animated "Rugrats" spinoff "The Carmichaels" and Nickelodeon's
first 3-D computer generated animation show "Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius."
Other pilots include live-action series "One Hundred Deeds for Eddie
McDowd" and "The Noah Chronicles" and animated series "Stewy the Dog Boy"
and "The Proud Family." In other news, Nickelodeon reported an in-house
kids viewership survey indicated national TV viewership by kids 2 to 11 is
down 13 percent from a year ago. Nickelodeon executives say they need to
study research more closely to determine the causes for the decline. "This
is really a new phenomenon that we really need to dive into," Ms. Zarghami
said.
--
Jeff Harris,
Member of the CN2: Toonami Inner Circle
http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Studio/8307/index.html
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