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Nick 2009

The new Nickelodeon logo used since September 29, 2009

Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick, and previously known as Pinwheel from 1977 until 1979) is an American children's cable television channel and the network for SpongeBob SquarePants.

History of Nickelodeon

Pinwheel (1977-1979)

Nickelodeon was originally launched as Pinwheel on December 1, 1977 and was a local station on Warner Cable's Qube station that ran for 6 hours a day. Shows included Video Comicbook, Pop Clips, and Pinwheel. Pinwheel went national in 1979 thus Nickelodeon has declared that 1979 is the network's official launch year. During its broadcast day, it would air shows such as the long running Pinwheel along with other TV shows such as Video Comic Book, America Goes Bananaz, Nickel Flicks and By the Way. In 1980, Geraldine Laybourne joined Nickelodeon's production team. She would become President of Nickelodeon in 1984.

Relaunch as Nickelodeon (1979-1990)

Pinwheel was relaunched as Nickelodeon: the First Network for Kids in 1981. It extended its hours from 8AM (EST) to 8PM (EST) by turning its channel over to the Alpha Repertory Television Service(ARTS) and later, for about a year, A&E Network. At one point the channel just went to a test screen after a sign-off. Its original logo was a silver pinball with the Nickelodeon title in front in multicolor. Nickelodeon's first popular series was You Can't Do That On Television, a Canadian sketch comedy that made its American debut on Nickelodeon in 1981.

Beginning Of The Slime

After a while the network was known for its iconic green slime, originally featured in You Can't Do That On Television. The green slime was then adopted by the station as a primary feature of many of its shows. In the early years, other shows such as Livewire, Standby: Lights, Camera, Action, The Third Eye and Mr. Wizard's World were part of the regular Nickelodeon time slots.

The Fall, The Rise Again, And The New Logo Of Nickelodeon

The channel struggled at first, having lost $40 million by 1984 and finishing dead last among cable channels. After firing the staff, MTV Networks president Bob Pittman turned to Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman, who created MTV's iconic IDs a few years earlier, to reverse Nickelodeon's fortunes. Seibert and Goodman's company, Fred / Alan, teamed up with Tom Corey and Scott Nash to replace the "Pinball" logo with the "orange splat" logo that would be used in hundreds of different variations for the next quarter century. Fred/Alan also enlisted the help of animators, writers, producers and doo-wop group The Jive Five to create new idents for the channel. Within six months of the re-branding, Nickelodeon went from worst to first and has stayed there for 25 years. In 1985, after ARTS dropped its partnership with Nickelodeon, Nick added a late-night new block called Nick at Nite. In 1988, Nick aired the first annual Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards(previously known as The Big Ballot) and introduced Nick Jr., an educational block for younger children.

Success in the 90s and 2000s (1990-2009)

By October 1990, Nickelodeon was seen in 52 million homes across the United States. In 1990, Nickelodeon opened Nickelodeon Studios, a television studio, in Orlando, Florida at Universal Studios Florida and entered into a multimillion-dollar joint marketing agreement with international restaurant chain Pizza Hut, which involved launching Nickelodeon Magazine, which was available for free at participating Pizza Hut restaurants. In 1991, for the first time, Nickelodeon developed its first animated series Doug, The Ren and Stimpy Show, and Rugrats. These series, known as Nicktoons, premiered on August 11, 1991. The network had previously refused to produce weekly animated series due to high cost. The three Nicktoons found success in 1993, while in mid-1993,

Nickelodeon Haystack logo

The Nickelodeon "Haystack" logo used at the end of many 90's Nickelodeon shows and most SpongeBob DVDs until 2007

Nickelodeon developed its 4th Nicktoon, Rocko's Modern Life, which was also a success along with the three other Nicktoons. Later, Nickelodeon partnered with Sony Wonder and released top selling video cassettes of the show's programming. By 1994, Doug ended production, but Rocko's Modern Life, The Ren and Stimpy Show, and Rugrats were still in production and airing. In mid-1996, Nickelodeon developed two new Nicktoons, KaBlam! and Hey Arnold! which would take the place of Rocko's Modern Life and The Ren and Stimpy Show since they would both have ended production about that time, but still would air re-runs up until about 2001. Rugrats, on the other hand, was still airing. The show got very popular in 1998, when The Rugrats Movie came out. The movie grossed more than $100 million in the United States and became the first non-Disney animated movie to ever sale that high.

The Continuity of Nick Magazine, All That, and the removing of You Can't Do That On Television

In June 1993, Nickelodeon resumed its magazine brand, Nickelodeon Magazine. Nick Magazine ceased production in 2009 with the December issue being the last. In 1993, Nickelodeon removed sketch comedy You Can't Do That On Television from its schedule after twelve years on and the next year the network had launch its own sketch comedy, All that but this also ended its production.

Re-branding and plans for the future (2009–present)

Nickelodeon had announced in February 2009 that Noggin and The N were to be re-branded as Nick Jr. and TeenNick to bring both channels in line with the Nickelodeon brand identity. Nickelodeon later announced in May 2009 that Nick Magazine would be discontinued by the end of the year. In July 2009, Nickelodeon unveiled a new logo for the first time in 25 years on the packaging of Nickelodeon DVDs coming out beginning that month, the Australian service, and that year's Nickelodeon Animation Festival, intending to create a unified look that can better be conveyed across all of MTV Networks' children's channels.

As of September 28, 2009, the new logo is used across Nickelodeon and Nick@Nite, along with the re-branded TeenNick, Nick Jr. and Nicktoons (formerly The N, Noggin and Nicktoons Network, respectively) channels in varying versions customized for brand unification and refreshment purposes; a new logo for Nickelodeon Productions also began being used in end credit tags on all Nickelodeon shows, even on episodes aired before the new logo took effect (end credit tags of programs airing on TeenNick, Nick Jr. and some shows on Nicktoons only use the current Nickelodeon Productions logo and variants for their respective channel's original programming on episodes of series made after the re-brand). New York based creative director / designer Eric Zim re-branded Nickelodeon, creating the new identity, logos, and the look and feel. In addition to creating the new Nickelodeon corporate logo, he created a whole new logo system to represent the company’s entire family of sub-brands (including digital networks Nick Jr., Nicktoons, TeenNick and Nick at Nite).

Though it is mainly a word mark, during the days prior to the 2010 Kids' Choice Awards, the logo bug was given a blimp background to match the award given out at the show; and beginning the week of September 7, 2010 the logo was formed by a splat design (a la the 2006-2009 logo) in the on-screen program bug during new episodes of its original series. The new logo was adopted in the UK on February 15, 2010, in Spain on February 19, 2010, in Asia on March 15, 2010 and in Latin America on April 5, 2010. The "Nickelodeon on ABS-CBN" block on ABS-CBN in the Philippines adopted the re-branded logo on July 26, 2010. On November 2, 2009, a Canadian version of Nickelodeon was launched, in partnership between Viacom and Corus Entertainment (owners of YTV, which has aired Nick shows for several years, and will continue to do so); as a result, versions of Nickelodeon now exist in most of North America.

On May 12, 2010, after an agreement was reached with Haim Saban (who earlier that month had bought back rights to the Power Rangers franchise from The Walt Disney Company), Nickelodeon agreed to air an eighteenth season of the series, and the production resumed in late 2010 for. The new show, Power Rangers Samurai, debuted in 2011; as part of the deal, Nickelodeon also planed to air the existing 700-episode catalog of the series on the Nicktoons cable channel later that year.

On January 1, 2011, Nickelodeon debuted a new original series, House of Anubis. The show, which was based on the series Het Huis Anubis which aired on an international version of Nickelodeon in The Netherlands, became the first original scripted series to be broadcast in a week-daily strip (in a similar format to a soap opera) and the first original series produced by the flagship Nickelodeon in the United States not to be produced in the United States or Canada. Also, it has been noted that the Nickelodeon team might reconstruct Nickelodeon Studios.The logo now has a good sense of graphics.

Programming

Nick@Nite

Nick@Nite (July 1, 1985–present) is the nighttime block for adults. This block shows sitcoms, and airs on Sunday-Thursdays from 8pm-7am ET/PT, on Fridays from 9pm-7am ET/PT, and Saturdays from 10pm-7am ET/PT. (also the program is innapropriate for kids & children.)

Nick Play Date

Nick Play Date (February 2009–present) is a block for pre-school age children, and is also the new version of Nick Jr. (January 1988-February 2009) It airs Monday-Fridays from 8:30am-2pm ET/PT, on holidays and summer months it airs in the earlier time period of 7-10am ET/PT.

A Morning of Premieres

A Morning of Premieres (July 2011–present) is the weekend block that airs first recent episodes of its original series on Saturday mornings. It features episode premieres of many of the channel's animated series.

A Night of Premieres

A Night of Premieres (July 2011–present) is the weekend block that airs first-run or recent episodes of its original series on Friday nights from 8-9pm ET, Saturday nights from 8-10pm ET, and Sunday nights from 7-7:30pm ET. Friday nights feature primarily reruns of various original series, the Saturday night schedule features episode premieres or repeats.

Other projects

Nick.com

Nick.com is Nickelodeon's official website. Launched on October 1995, which offers content such as games, episodes / clips, and a message board.

Nick Magazine

Children's magazine launched in 1993 and was discontinued in 2009.

Nickelodeon Movies

The motion picture production that was launched in 1995.

Gallery

Wikipedia logo This page uses content from Wikipedia (originalauthors). Both Encyclopedia SpongeBobia and Wikipedia are licensed under the CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported license.


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