Nickelodeon


Nickelodeon is an American pay television channel and the flagship property of Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Skydance. Launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children, it is primarily aimed at children and adolescents aged 2 to 17, along with a broader family audience through its programming blocks.
The channel began as a test broadcast on December 1, 1977, as part of QUBE, an early cable television system broadcast locally in Columbus, Ohio. On April 1, 1979, the channel was renamed Nickelodeon and launched to a new nationwide audience, with Pinwheel as its inaugural program. The network was initially commercial-free and remained without advertising until 1984. Nickelodeon gained a rebranding in programming and image that year, and its ensuing success led to it and its sister networks MTV and VH1 being sold to Viacom in 1985.
Nickelodeon began expanding as a franchise model with the addition of sister channels and program blocks. Nick Jr. launched as preschool morning block on January 4, 1988, and was eventually spun-off into the Nick Jr. Channel in 2009. Nicktoons, based on the flagship brand for Nickelodeon original animated series, launched as a standalone channel in 2002. Noggin, an interactive educational brand created in partnership with Sesame Workshop, existed as a television channel from 1999 to 2009, and a mobile streaming service from 2015 to 2024. Two blocks aimed at teenage audiences, Nickelodeon's TEENick and Noggin's The N, were merged to form the TeenNick channel in 2009.
, Nickelodeon was available to approximately 70 million pay television households in the United States, down from its peak of 101 million households in 2011. Until August 2025, the channel's content was sent to Canada to air on a children's channel called YTV which lost the rights to air its content on September 1, 2025 along with the channel's Canadian counterpart to shutdown completely.

History

The channel's name comes from the first five-cent movie theaters called nickelodeons. Its history dates back to December 1, 1977, when Warner Cable Communications launched the first 2-way interactive cable system, QUBE, in Columbus, Ohio. The C-3 cable channel carried Pinwheel daily from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and the channel was labelled "Pinwheel" on remote controllers, as it was the only program broadcast. Initially scheduled for a February 1979 launch, Nickelodeon launched on April 1, 1979, initially distributed to Warner Cable systems via satellite on the RCA Satcom-1 transponder. Originally commercial-free, advertising was introduced in January 1984.

Programming

Programming seen on Nickelodeon includes animated series, live-action, scripted series, and original television films, while the network's daytime schedule is dedicated to shows targeting preschoolers.
A recurring program was bi-monthly special editions of Nick News, a news magazine series aimed at children hosted by Linda Ellerbee; it premiered in 1992 as a weekly series and ended in 2015. In June 2020, Nickelodeon announced that they would revive Nick News in a series of hour-long specials. The first installment, Kids, Race and Unity: A Nick News Special premiered on June 29, 2020, and was hosted by R&B musician Alicia Keys.
Since 2021, Nickelodeon has aired at least one live National Football League game a year, produced by corporate sibling CBS Sports and incorporating elements unique to Nickelodeon into the broadcast such as green slime in the end zone and SpongeBob SquarePants' face superimposed on the netting of the goalposts. Nickelodeon also carries the weekly shoulder program NFL Slimetime during the season which includes similar graphics. Nickelodeon offered the first alternate broadcast of a Super Bowl in 2024 when it aired a SpongeBob SquarePants-themed simulcast of CBS' coverage.

Nicktoons

Nicktoons is the branding for Nickelodeon's original animated series. Until 1991, the animated series that aired on Nickelodeon were largely imported from foreign countries, with some original animated specials that were also featured on the channel up to that point. Though the Nicktoons branding has infrequently been used by the network itself since the 2002 launch of the channel of the same name, original animated series continue to take a substantial portion of Nickelodeon's lineup. Roughly, six to seven hours of these programs are seen on the weekday schedule, and around nine hours on weekends, including a dedicated weekend morning animation block.
In 2006, the channel struck a deal with DreamWorks Animation to develop the studio's animated films into television series. Since the early 2010s, Nickelodeon Animation Studio has also produced series based on preexisting IP purchased by Paramount's predecessor, Viacom, such as Winx Club and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Movies

Nickelodeon has produced a variety of original made-for-television movies, which usually premiere in weekend evening timeslots or on school holidays. Nickelodeon also periodically acquires theatrically released feature films for broadcast on the channel.
The channel occasionally airs feature films produced by the network's Nickelodeon Movies film production division. Although the film division has the Nickelodeon brand name, the channel does not have access to most of the movies produced by its film unit. The majority of the live-action feature films produced under the Nickelodeon Movies banner are licensed for broadcast by various free-to-air and pay television outlets within the United States other than Nickelodeon.
Nickelodeon also advertises hour-long episodes of its original series as movies; though the "TV movie" versions of Nickelodeon's original series differ from traditional television films in that they have shorter running times, and use a traditional multi-camera setup for regular episodes with some on-location filming.
In 2002, Nickelodeon entered a long-standing broadcast partnership with Mattel to air films and specials based on the latter's Barbie dolls. The first Barbie film to air on Nickelodeon was Barbie as Rapunzel on November 24, 2002. The Barbie and Monster High films are usually aired under a brokered format in which Mattel purchases the time in order to promote the release of their films on DVD within a few days of the Nickelodeon premiere, an arrangement possible as Nickelodeon does not have to meet the Federal Communications Commission rules which disallow that arrangement for broadcast channels due to regulations banning paid programming to children. This ended with Barbie: Video Game Hero in 2017, after which the Barbie film series moved to Netflix with a reduced 1-hour runtime.

Programming blocks

Current

  • Nick Jr. – Nickelodeon currently broadcasts shows targeted at preschool-aged children on Monday through Fridays from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time. The block primarily targets audiences of preschool age as Nickelodeon's usual audience of school-aged children are in school during the block's designated time period. Programs currently seen in this block include Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig, Blaze and the Monster Machines, Ryan's Mystery Playdate, Blue's Clues & You!, Santiago of the Seas, and Baby Shark's Big Show!.
  • Nick at Nite – Nickelodeon's nighttime programming service, which premiered on July 1, 1985, and broadcasts from prime time to early morning. Originally featured classic sitcoms from the 1950s and 1960s such as The Donna Reed Show, Mr. Ed and Lassie, programming eventually shifted towards repeats of popular sitcoms from the 1980s to the 2000s such as Home Improvement, The Cosby Show and Roseanne. In 1996, a pay television channel, TV Land based on the block, launched with a similar format of programs. Nick at Nite has also occasionally incorporated original scripted and competition series, with some in recent years produced through its parent network's Nickelodeon Productions unit. As of 2021, programming on Nick at Nite consists entirely of acquired shows such as Full House, Friends, Mom and Young Sheldon. Since 2004, Nielsen has broken out the television ratings of Nick at Nite and Nickelodeon as two separate networks.

    Former

  • SNICK – "SNICK" was the network's first dedicated Saturday primetime block that aired from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time featuring shows for preteens and teenagers, it premiered on August 15, 1992, with the initial lineup featuring two established series that originally aired on Sundays, Clarissa Explains It All and The Ren & Stimpy Show, and two new series, Roundhouse and Are You Afraid of the Dark?. The block mainly featured live-action series, although it periodically featured animated series. SNICK was discontinued on January 29, 2005, and was replaced the following week by a Saturday night edition of the TEENick block on February 5, 2005.
  • Nick in the Afternoon – "Nick in the Afternoon" was a daytime block that ran on weekday afternoons during the summer months from 1995 to 1997, and aired in an extended format until December for its final year in 1998. It was hosted by Stick Stickly, a Mr. Bill-like popsicle stick character. The block was replaced for Summer 1999 by "Henry and June's Summer". From 2011 to 2012, Stick Stickly returned to television for TeenNick's "The '90s Are All That" to host "U-Pick with Stick" on Friday nights as a concept of user-chosen programming.
  • U-Pick Live – "U-Pick Live" was a block that aired weekday afternoons from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time from October 14, 2002, to May 27, 2005, which was broadcast from studios in New York City's Times Square district, where Nickelodeon is headquartered. Using a similar concept that originated in 1994, with the Nick in the Afternoon block, "U-Pick Live" allowed viewer interaction in selecting the programs that would air on the block via voting on the network's website.
  • TEENick – "TEENick" was a teenage-oriented block that ran from March 4, 2001, to February 1, 2009, which ran on Sundays from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time; a secondary block on Saturdays launched in 2005, replacing the 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific timeslot long held by SNICK. It was originally hosted by Nick Cannon, and then by Jason "J. Boogie" Everhart. Beginning in January 2007, Noggin's own teenage-targeted block The N began airing programming from the block. The TEENick name, which was removed on February 1, 2009, later became the name of the channel TeenNick on September 28, 2009.
  • ME:TV – "ME:TV" was a short-lived live hosted afternoon block that ran during summer 2007, which ran on weekday afternoons from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time.
  • Nick Saturday Nights – a primetime live-action block airing from 8:00 to 9:30 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time. It was introduced on September 22, 2012, as Gotta See Saturday Nights. Recent episodes of certain original series may air when no new episodes are scheduled to air that week. Premieres of the network's original made-for-television movies also occasionally aired during the primetime block, usually in the form of premiere showings. The block was discontinued in December 2021.
  • Nick Studio 10 – "Nick Studio 10" was a short-lived late afternoon programming block that ran from February 18 to June 17, 2013, which ran weekdays from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time. The block featured wraparound segments based on episodes of the network's animated series, which were shown in an off-the-clock schedule due to the segments that aired following each program's individual acts.
  • That New Thursday Night – a live-action comedy block airing from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time. The schedule featured Danger Force, ''Tyler Perry's Young Dylan, That Girl Lay Lay, The Really Loud House, and Erin & Aaron. It was discontinued on June 29, 2023.
  • AfterToons – an animation block airing weekday afternoons and featuring new episodes of a rotating selection of Nickelodeon animated series. The series featured are SpongeBob SquarePants, The Loud House, The Patrick Star Show, Big Nate, Rugrats, and The Smurfs''. It was discontinued on November 24, 2023.