Analysis of a Cable Network

NICKELODEON

by

Christoph Koch

Introduction 4


History 4

Philosophy & Programming Strategies 4

Types of Programming 5

Recent Developments & Future Plans 5

Competition 6

Facts & Figures 6

Conclusion 7

Introduction

This research paper deals with a cable network that could establish itself within the last 20 years from a small and unknown service to a synonym for kids′ programming: NICKELODEON. The basic cable network is one of the most successful ones in the US - commercially as well as from a programming standpoint - and is also expanding into other countries all over the world². As a result of a clever branding approach the name of the network is well known to a lot of people and stands for a unique philosophy and image, which will also be discussed in this research paper. NICKELODEON is one of the biggest players (if the not the single biggest one) in the worldwide ′kidvid′ market and therefor should be very interesting to analyze.

History

The New York-based cable channel started out in 1979 as a commercial-free service. Before that, NICKELODEON was part of Warner Cable′s interactive cable experiment QUBE in Columbus, Ohio. The reasons for the program to be changed to a full cable network, however, were more than usual: NICKELODEON wasn′t created for the children′s sake, but for cable operators who needed a service which was attractive to young families so they would subscribe to cable (Picard 1993, p. 150).

NICKELODEON consequently didn′t play a major role in the first five years of its existence and had appeal to only very few children. Then, however, major changes took place: Not only did NICKELODEON start to accept advertiser support in 1984, it also turned into a 24-hour program with the successful implementation of NICK AT NITE in 1985².

Philosophy & Programming Strategies

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1 Right now NICKELODEON can be seen in over 100 countries worldwide (Hankin 1998, p. 106)

2 Since children are watching only during the day, it obviously made sense to target a different audience during the night. NICK AT NITE is on from 8 PM to 6 AM and caters to babyboomers who grew up with television by airing mainly TV classics from the last four decades like ‘I Love Lucy’, ‘The Brady Bunch’ or ‘ The Mary Tyler Moore Show’ (see schedule in the appendix). In this paper, however, I will only focus on the ‘normal’ daytime NICKELODEON.