Nick Junior
Channel Name: Nick
Junior
Launched:
February 2, 1999 (original launch, as Noggin), December 31, 2007 (as Noggin as
its own channel), September 28, 2009 (relaunch, as Nick Jr.)
Owned by:
Viacom Media Networks (Viacom)
Country:
United States
Broadcast area: National
Network:
Sun TV Network
Headquarters:
New York City, New York
Sister channels:
Nickelodeon, TeenNick, Nicktoons
Language: English
Website:
http://www.nickjr.com/
Nick Jr. (stylized as nick jr.) is an
American digital cable and satellite television channel that is owned by the
MTV Networks Kids & Family Group, a unit of the Viacom Media Networks
division of Viacom. The channel, which is aimed at younger children between 2
and 6 years old, features a mix of originally-produced programming, and series
previously and concurrently aired on the "Nick: The Smart Place to
Play" block – and its previous iterations – on Nickelodeon.
The
channel was originally known as Noggin from its February 2, 1999 launch until
September 28, 2009. Sister channel The N was relaunched as TeenNick at the same
time as Noggin's relaunch as Nick Jr.; like with TeenNick, Nick Jr.'s name was
taken from a former program block on parent channel Nickelodeon, which aired
weekday mornings from 1988 to 2009 under the Nick Jr. name; and still survives
today on Nickelodeon as a block known in promotions as "Nick: The Smart
Place to Play" (which regularly airs from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET; 7:00
to 10:00 a.m. ET on designated school break periods and major national
holidays), which has traditional commercial breaks and no common continuity
between each series.
History: As Noggin
(1999–2009)
The Noggin logo, used from February 2, 1999
to September 28, 2009.
Nick
Jr. originally launched as Noggin on February 2, 1999, as a joint venture
between Viacom's Nickelodeon and the Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame
Workshop); Sesame Workshop later sold its interest in the channel to Viacom at
some point in 2002.[1] The network's name was derived from a slang term for
"head" and, by extension, had reflected its original purpose as an educational
channel. Noggin's programming was originally targeted primarily at pre-teens
from 1999 to 2002, although a few programs airing on the channel (such as Play
with Me Sesame) were aimed at preschoolers. This had the unintended consequence
of creating a redundant audience with parent network Nickelodeon, which also
primarily targets a pre-teen audience, despite Noggin's programming being more
educational in nature than the entertainment-based Nickelodeon. The channel's
first official mascot was Phred, a strange pickle character, who was seen on
the channel from 1999 to 2002.
Noggin
was nominally a commercial-free service, but it did show interstitials between
shows such as Connie the Cow's Milk Break, as well as other "tie-in"
media such as music videos that tied in with promotions for programs on the
other Nickelodeon channels. Much of the channel's revenue comes primarily from
carriage fees paid by pay television providers.
Due
to low ratings, the format of Noggin was changed on April 1, 2002, shifting its
target audience to preschoolers full-time. That same date, Viacom launched The
N, a teen-oriented program block that targeted an older audience and featured
programming edgier in content that Noggin or Nickelodeon. Similarly to the
shared-time format of Nickelodeon (which had shared channel space with other
cable channels throughout much of its history including The Movie Channel, BET,
the Alpha Repertory Television Service and its successor A&E) and Nick at
Nite, Noggin and The N aired their respective programming over the same channel
space and in a block format: Noggin ran from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET, while
The N ran from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. ET seven nights a week. This was
acknowledged in Noggin's daily sign-off message, which explained that Noggin would
resume its programming at 6:00 a.m. ET the next morning. With the rebrand,
Noggin introduced a new mascot, "Feetface", its introduction brought
about one of the first examples of a new animation style called
"photo-puppetry", in which an animation is created by the use of
manipulation of photographs; Feetface was replaced on April 7, 2003 by two new
mascots, Moose A. Moose and Zee Bird, who were also animated through
photo-puppetry.
In
addition to airing classic Nickelodeon preschool series such as Blue's Clues
and Dora the Explorer, and original shows such as Jack's Big Music Show, Noggin
also aired many preschool-oriented shows originating from English-speaking
countries outside of the United States (including the Canadian series Little
Bear and Franklin, and British series Connie the Cow and Tiny Planets). The
channel also served as the launching pad for music videos by children's music
artists such as Laurie Berkner, Lisa Loeb and Dan Zanes, initially as filler
between 23-minute-long shows that ran commercial-free, and (because of their
success in that format) now as music video shows like Move to the Music. The
channel continued to carry classic Sesame Workshop series until September 12,
2005. Around this time, Noggin began to air versions of classic shows from the
Sesame Workshop library (such as The Electric Company), that were edited for
running time.
In
August 2007, Nickelodeon announced that it would shut down sister channel
Nickelodeon Games and Sports on December 31, 2007,[2] turning it into an online-only
service on TurboNick, with The N becoming its own 24-hour channel that would
take over Nickelodeon GAS's channel space.[3] At 6:00 p.m. ET on December 30,
2007, Noggin officially ended its run as a time-shared service. However, due to
technical issues, Dish Network continued to carry Nickelodeon GAS on its usual
channel slot, with Noggin continuing to timeshare with The N on the satellite
provider until April 2009, when Dish replaced GAS with the Pacific Time Zone
feed of Cartoon Network; Dish Network began to carry The N and Noggin as
separate channels on May 5, 2009.
In
2008, Noggin began to decrease its reliance on foreign children's programs;
Tweenies was permanently pulled from the schedule in January, with Tiny Planets
being dropped that April. Tiny Planets was previously shown intermittently –
but not on a daily basis – at 6 a.m. ET, as Tweenies was for a year until it
was pulled. However, the channel later acquired the Australian series The
Upside Down Show (which like Tiny Planets, has American origins through Sesame
Workshop).
As Nick Jr. (2009–present) On February
24, 2009, Nickelodeon announced that Noggin and The N were to be rebranded as
Nick Jr. and TeenNick to bring both channels in line with the Nickelodeon brand
identity.[4] In July of that year, Nickelodeon unveiled new standardized logos
for its five channels, intending to create a unified look that could better be
conveyed across the services.[5]
On
September 28, 2009 at 6:00 a.m. ET, Noggin relaunched as Nick Jr., accompanied
by the debut of the new logo (which was designed by New York City-based
creative director/designer Eric Zim). Although the use of an orange
"adult" and blue "child" figure was discontinued in the new
wordmark logo, the tradition of the "Nick" text being orange
(representing the adult) and the "Jr." text remaining in blue (as the
child) was retained.[6] As is common with newer networks which have taken
another former network's channel slot, some cable providers have confusingly
continued to display the channel's logos as either Noggin, The N or both as
that of Nick Jr.'s current logo on electronic program guides. The Nick Jr.
channel retained Noggin's mascots Moose A. Moose and Zee; it also continued not
to accept traditional advertising or marginalize closing credits for promotion
of other shows on the channel.
A
Spanish language block featuring Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon programs debuted on
July 12, 2010 on sister channel Tr3́s. "Tr3́s Jr." aired Spanish dubs
of Blue's Clues and SpongeBob SquarePants; the block was later discontinue.
On
March 1, 2012, an update of Nick Jr.'s image debuted that was produced by
Gretel Inc., with a new advertising campaign produced by BBDO. The Moose A.
Moose and Zee D. Bird mascots were retired completely, removing one of the last
vestiges of the channel's former Noggin identity; as a result, some of the
interstitial learning activities that originally featured Moose's narration
were recycled and replaced by the voice of a female continuity announcer.
Disappointed parents organized a social media effort to bring back the
characters.[8] The channel changed its slogan from "It's Like Preschool on
TV" to "The Smart Place to Play" (which is also used as the
branding for the Nickelodeon's preschool block). The channel's programming at
this point began to be hosted by characters from Nick Jr. shows. The channel
also began incorporating programming promotions and short features on that
date; seven months later, on October 1, 2012, Nick Jr. started airing limited
traditional advertising (for companies such as ABCmouse.com Early Learning
Academy, Kmart and Playskool) in the form of underwriter sponsorships airing
in-between shows.
Programming
Main
article: List of programs broadcast by Nick Jr.
Programming block
NickMom
On
October 1, 2012, Nick Jr. debuted a new program block at mothers called NickMom
(stylized as nickmom),[9] a comedy-themed block (which broadcasts traditional
advertising, as opposed to the limited sponsorship format of Nick Jr.'s
preschool programming) that airs nightly from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. ET, with a
replay from 12 a.m. to 2 a.m. ET. Programs featured in the block include
Parental Discretion with Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, MFF: Mom Friends Forever,
NickMom Night Out, and What Was Carol Brady Thinking?, featuring comedic commentary
from Carol Brady within episodes of The Brady Bunch in the style of Pop-Up
Video (Florence Henderson herself has no involvement in What Was Carol Brady
Thinking?, with commentary penned by writers not involved with the original
series). On October 23, 2012, NickMom moved its start time five minutes earlier
to 9:55 p.m. ET, in order to fit stories from NickMom.com into the block.
The
block launched with heavy controversy. As Nick Jr. operates only one feed that
broadcasts on a default Eastern Time Zone schedule and does not operate a
secondary feed for the Pacific Time Zone, NickMom programming starts at 7 p.m.
Pacific Time, and in time zones further west outside the continental United
States, 6 p.m. in the Alaska Time Zone, and 5 p.m in the Hawaii-Aleutian Time
Zone. Many parents have found the scheduling inappropriate partly due to this,
along with the issue of NickMom's programming featuring sexual, coarse, and
child-bashing humor, and light profanity uncensored (although similar content
can be found on some programs seen on sister channel TeenNick, which has looser
content restrictions than the other Nickelodeon channels). Parents also felt
that the purpose and lure of the network with full-time preschool programming
was nullified in the pursuit of increasing ratings with content not meant for
children.[10]
The
content of the block's website has also been criticized for the same reasons,
along with earlier allegations that the staff of the network's website took
content from other websites, including pictures of children, without any
attribution or credit, and without permission.[11][12]
Subsequently,
Nielsen ratings for the NickMom block's first week plunged 75% from that same
period the year prior when Nick Jr. programs aired in the timeslot, with some
shows registering a "scratch" as being unrated due to a low sample
size.[13] Parents have encouraged advertisers to pull their sponsorships from
the block, and members of some online parenting communities have demanded that
children's programming return to the channel during that timeslot. Fisher Price
and the General Mills brands Cheerios and Green Giant later pulled their
advertising from the block by October 26, due to consumer reactions on social
media.
International
Asia
On
May 16, 2011, MTV Networks launched two new channels, Nick Jr. and MTVNHD, in
Asia. These 24-hour channels began to be available on StarHub TV in Singapore
on May 18 and on Telekom Malaysia Berhad's Hypp.TV in Malaysia on June 1. The
channel launched aggressively to the rest of Southeast Asia later........Wikipedia >>
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