Facebook | Nickelodeon's Network Decay
TMC
# Nickelodeon. Over the years, the network has severely narrowed its
demographic by increments. It originally prided itself as being
essentially a family network, with an emphasis on programming for
children in the daytime (preschoolers in the early morning on
weekdays), teens in early evening, and parents at night. Now, however,
most - if not all - of the teen and adult programming (SNICK, Nick At
Nite, and the last vestiges of children's game shows, just to name a
few) has been dumped in favor of cartoon-y cartoons and tween/preteen
"hip" live action series (and about 12 hours of SpongeBob reruns
daily). The worst and most obvious example of this is the recent live
action show on the so-called "TEENick" lineup (which retains only one
or two shows about/directed towards actual teenagers), The Naked
Brothers Band, which essentially is a Hannah Montana ripoff about two
9-year-old boys. Really.
* Interestingly, you can see how Nick was trying so intensely to
narrow down the age of people watching the network when you look at
the failure of shows like Invader Zim. And by "failure," we really
mean "it was being watched primarily by teens and college kids, not
the 6-11 year olds that Viacom wanted." Avatar: The Last Airbender
would've gone the same way as Zim if it weren't for the fact that it
was just as popular with the target age as it was with the teens (and
the college kids, and the adults). Even then, the network seemed to
resent the attention it got from older viewers, as new episodes came
out at a snail's pace and reruns are almost never shown now that the
show has ended (possibly in part because of having an actual plot,
instead of being episodic like most cartoons). (They've shown reruns
in recent day, but more to promote the film adaptation The Last
Airbender than for anything like ratings.)
* Nicktoons Network dumped showing of older or cancelled Nicktoons
such as Angry Beavers, Doug, Ren And Stimpy, Rugrats, Hey Arnold,
etc., in favor of showing reruns of the exact same shows playing on
Nickelodeon, just a few channels away. As of 2006, the channel has
also abandoned its "commercial-free" notion. What was once its mascot,
the Too Good To Last Invader Zim, has been pushed back to 5 AM. This
also meant the end of slime shows like Super Sloppy Double Dare and
the like.
o Lately, it's even been getting rid of more recent Nicktoons and
replacing them with standardized superhero adaptations. Also, live-
action programming.
o There was a poll on the Nickelodeon site about wanting Invader Zim
back or not. 99% said yes, 1% said no. It's now on a regular time slot
again.
* Another Nick spinoff, Nick GAS (Games and Sports), was formerly a
dumping ground for Nick's aforementioned children's game shows and
game/sports-themed shows, along with original segments dealing with
kids and their games and sports. It slowly lost programs until, at the
end of its run, it was only airing reruns of a few old Nick game
shows, having lost all of the original segments and programming. It
was finally replaced with the teen-oriented "The N", formerly part of
the now just-for-preschoolers Noggin, a switch which now leaves
millions of college kids without reruns of Legends of the Hidden
Temple to sarcastically comment about.
* Naturally, "The N" itself quickly decayed, with a mass-canceling of
much of their teen/young adult oriented programming (such as South Of
Nowhere and Instant Star), and devoting an increasing amount of
airtime to old Nickelodeon shows, other Disney Channel-esque tween
fare, and reruns of UPN stalwart One on One because it can be run for
pennies per airing. A special mention goes out to the way they treated
Degrassi: The Next Generation. The N's broadcasts of that show had
always been bowdlerized, the most infamous example being when they
refused to air an episode about abortion for fear of offending the
Moral Guardians. It got worse when the show started becoming really
popular in America, putting The N in a position to force creative
changes onto the show that served to turn it from a fairly realistic
(if hyper-melodramatic) depiction of teenage life into a clone of The
OC.
o And now, in a two-for-one decay, the TEENick block is being dumped
from Nickelodeon proper, while The N is being renamed "TeenNick".
Let's hope that they're better with keeping decay under control this
time (although I wouldn't place any bets).
o "The N" used to share a programming half with "Noggin", which used
to be about education for young people. That demo got younger and
younger until now it's for 3-5 year olds (and itself has bitten the
bullet and renamed itself Nick Jr.)
o Some will insist that Noggin decayed when Sesame Workshop sold their
share of the network back to Viacom, putting The Electric Company,
3-2-1 Contact, and pre-1990s episodes of Sesame Street off the air in
the process.
* Also, Nick At Nite in general. It started out as the after-dark
portion of Nickelodeon, where they showed decades-old TV shows (The
Munsters, I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and so on). But as time
went on, it began adding shows that were ten years old or less
(Roseanne, The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, and most damningly, The George
Lopez Show), and eventually, they changed their motto to "The Place
for Modern TV Hits", airing such shows as Scrubs, Everybody Hates
Chris, and Glenn Martin DDS. Arguably, the shift began with the
addition of Taxi to the line-up in 1995, the most relatively modern
and (more importantly) edgy show the network had broadcast up till
that point.
o Wait, wait, wait! "Glenn Martin DDS"? Modern TV Hit?!
o This is mostly due to Nickelodeon fully taking over programming duty
for Nick At Nite (now spelled as Nick@Nite) and re-purposing the
network as a family block. Of course, the lines are blurring between
Nickelodeon and Nick@Nite in terms of promotion and some speculate
Nick@Nite might soon disappear.
o One of the key issues is that it always showed reruns. Also, if you
look at it from a relative time standpoint, it's not so bad. When I
started watching in the late 80s, it was dedicated to shows from the
60s and 70s. The 90's showcased shows from the 70s and 80s. Last
decade showed mostly shows from the 90s. Given that it's now 2010,
it's not that surprising to start seeing shows from the 90s and the
00s.
o Nick At Nite appears to have decayed a bit further, heading towards
becoming The George Lopez Show At Nite by giving the show Wolverine
Publicity. Nearly every marathon they air now is of The George Lopez
Show, and they don't even save marathons for holidays and special
occasions anymore. First they would look for any excuse they could
find to show a George Lopez marathon, until they recently stopped
bothering to come up with an excuse.