The fate of Nick and its live feed

The Fate of Nick and Its Live Feed by Felix Saenz
Ah, Nickelodeon, the one network that has a strange history with scheduling. Before CBS ALL ACCESS rebranded to Paramount+ on March 2021, the live feed was always put over streaming since ViacomCBS wasn’t too active on moving on to the world of binge watching (despite their schedules already being infected with marathons after marathons). Granted, MTV has already become a shell of its former self since they insist on playing nothing but Ridiculousness when they’re not showing movies or the rest of their lineup. Comedy Central has become South Park/Office Central for those who enjoy watching Eric Cartman and Michael Scott’s shenanigans. TV Land seems to be stuck on autopilot since it has almost never changed. As I graphed other VCBS networks, though, they are a little more varied than MTV and CC, despite abandoning their gimmicks. But I am going a tad off-topic here, since we’re supposed to be covering Nickelodeon’s live feed and how it’s going to stay relevant with Paramount+ succeeding and I’ll be dividing it by networks on how to solve the problems. As you can tell, Paramount+ has been a winner for Nickelodeon content and it may or may not impact the live feed in some way. 

Nickelodeon
Since about mid 2018, Nick has weeks, if you don’t count preschool and Nick @ Nite content, where they only air two shows - SpongeBob and The Loud House. Before that, live-action shows and lesser popular cartoons (it can happen, but it never lasts long) would have a regular timeslot, preventing from both of the cash cows from taking over. But now, it feels like Nick has given up at making a decent schedule. Only the preschool block is a tad decent, but even their love of Paw Patrol can get out of hand at times.

But yes, Paramount+ is the major key factor of Nick phoning it in with the schedule. They always knew the audience only wants SpongeBob, Loud House, and family animated movies, such as Despicable Me, Ice Age, Alvin and The Chipmunks (90% of which aren’t even owned by Paramount Pictures), so they always go with the safest option instead of taking risks. What I’m going to do is stop making sure that the side channels get more screentime of currently airing shows so that the main channel can be the hub of both old and new. This is my fantasy schedule of Nickelodeon for the year 2022. It won’t ever happen but just imagine if they rebrand the same way Cartoon Network did. 

As you can see, their three desired shows will still get the most screentime while giving equal attention to other shows, who only seem to air reruns whenever they’re having new episodes. Though, eventually I’m going to have to change it up once certain shows lose relevance (which means less reruns) or gain popularity (which means more reruns). Movies will be now only air during the weekends. Saturday nights can be use to air Dreamworks/Blue Sky/Illumination movies that Nick loves to air so much. Sunday nights is mostly Viacom’s movie division, including Nickelodeon movies, something Nick rarely played outside of SpongeBob movies. There will be some mature movie, but they have to be PG-13 or lower. The most important thing I have done is turn Nick into a broadcast network (like ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC) and have them their programming air new episodes every night:
Mondays will be a night of cable premieres of Paramount+ originals (Kamp Koral, Rugrats reboot, iCarly revival, Star Trek Prodigy, Big Nate), Tuesdays will be a night of non-cash cash Nicktoons and acquired cartoons, Wednesdays is a night of unscripted content (such as NFL Slimetime and Tooned In), Thursdays and Saturdays are sitcom premiere nights (guess there’s not enough room now now that the 9pm hour is a death slot), Fridays is SpongeBob/Loud House universe premiere night, and Sunday nights are reserved for movies as previously mentioned.

Nicktoons
The Nicktoons network is a channel where you could watch animation for 24/7. However, in recent years, it has broken its premise of being an animation channel and insists of playing live-action shows because the people running schedulers are that clueless. Granted, they were on and off from 2008-2014, but since 2015, live-action content were here to stay on the so called Nicktoons network. The Nicktoons is notorious for being a dumping ground of cartoons Nick doesn’t want. It happened so often due to not matching SpongeBob’s ratings. This has dated back as early as 2004. Even worse, in the past few years, the Nicktoons network has become a clone of the main network, where they’ll air the same shows that we’re already spammed enough. Yes I’m talking about SpongeBob, which you can’t escape from it during overnight hours and since 2020, The Loud House and its spin-off have truly taken over this channel when the sponge, fairies, chipmunks, or other shows aren’t around. And worse of all, Fairly OddParents is literally the only ended show to currently play on the channel. So there’s either two things to do with it: turn the channel back into what it’s best known for - Animation Capital of the World - or simply shut down. There’s no point having a 24/7 version of the main channel when you should easily play more of the non-cash cow shows over there. It needs to be a rerun channel of ended Nicktoons from 1991 to the 2010s. The current Nicktoons can stay, they just need to only air on certain time of the day instead of engulfing the channel.

TeenNick
TeenNick has one of the more bizarre history ever. It was once known as The N, which was a teen orientated block on Noggin, basically airing during the night. Eventually, when NickGAS shut down, The N became a full channel, but it wasn’t long until it renamed itself to TeenNick (like the block Nick used to air every Sundays). People growing up with today’s TeenNick forgot to know what it’s like to watch a channel that actually dealt with teen issues. Degrassi was big and was a ratings draw for the channel. But all good things must to an end. The show ended its run on summer 2015, and from there on, the channel would literally become a place to watch Nick sitcoms. If you check the schedule, chances are, you’ll most likely going to see a Dan Schneider show. His works take up most of the channel and you can see why. He was a huge part of Nickelodeon for a couple decades. Then he was let go for creative differences. While still remaining a rerun farm for teen sitcoms, I’ve noticed this weird trend since April of last year - TeenNick is slowly becoming a superhero themed network, where most of the schedule consists of Henry Danger, The Thundermans, and Danger Force. What makes this bad is that some of the older shows have been either removed or taken a backseat. Getting rid of Schneider may be one thing, but there’s one genre we might exterminate from making more of - superheroes, especially how big it’s been. Just balance it out by playing a mixture of musical and non-Schneider sitcoms and the channel can stay alive for a little longer. As for NickRewind (which have been a thing since 2011), switch it up by removing the brand completely and turn it into a throwback block for past teen shows.

Nick Jr
Nick Jr, formerly known as Noggin, was one of the first side channels of Nick. It played educational programming, and was targeted towards tweens in addition to little kids. By the time it became Nick Jr, it was mostly playing programming from the preschool block on the main channel. Which isn’t a bad thing, of course, but as the years go on, they slowly started playing more and more current programming. Notice the pattern? Although I don’t mind this with Nick Jr channel itself, since preschool programming almost never airs on Nick during the weekend, the current schedule consists 90% of current shows that are in production, with Team Umizoomi the only ended show in reruns, as well as a couple shows that are exclusive to the channel. Toddlers may not care about the scheduling, but I want to make the channel a mix of old and new. The daytime can be mostly 2010s shows, evening hours can be a repeat of what aired on the main channel’s preschool block, and overnights can be a throwback block. It’s a shame to see what this channel in the last couple years. It went from the most diverse Nick channels to having worse schedule than Disney Junior.

In the end, while Nickelodeon will survive the 2020s, I don’t think Nicktoons and TeenNick are going to last any longer. If their current schedule are of concern, Paramount+ is the only way to legally watch your favorite Nick shows. All that begging to play old shows almost never work out. NickRewind is also on its last legs, as they’re going as far to only play ICarly in the coming weeks. The Nick Jr channel, however, will be here to stay, since their shows are profitable. Unlike the other two side channels, it is a brand according to ViacomCBS. I don’t think combing Nicktoons and TeenNick would work out since they’re going to be spamming their desired shows more than it already have, so if it were to happen, they better find a way to balance their 12 hours of screentime. As a Nick expert, I have hopes that they can still pump out original ideas as long as people are interested and tuning in to the network. Right now, they’re apathetic of the live feed like Cartoon Network did when HBO MAX launched, but sooner or later, Nick will go back to their old roots. And that is why I’m making this blog a perfect start for my new era of Felix Reviews - The Nickelodeon Journals is only just beginning. Join me as I try to find the good of Nickelodeon, as well as reviewing every year of their content since 1990, and more. The annual reviews are going to consist of one or two reviews of why I consider it the best/worst year from that particular year. Though, from this decade, I will actually try to review the new shows if I can. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog. Until next time, “Why Nickelodeon will never suffer from Network Decay?”, where I compare Nick and fellow kids networks and why the channel never fell off as a network, including Nick @ Nite and its side channels.