An old Nick at Nite article (1990).... - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

benjamoon · 09-17-2010, 03:57 PM

this is from Entertainment Weekly, I stumbled on it when I was looking for something else

Doesn't it makes you sad to see how Nick at Nite has become an "ordinary" network...

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NICK'S KNACK
Looking at Nick at Nite -- Nickelodeon's late night offering brings classic television back to life
By Benjamin Svetkey | Jun 29, 1990

It looked like a scene from a deranged horror movie: Dozens of Donna Reed clones — all wearing identical high heels, kitchen aprons, and pearl necklaces — were marching down the middle of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, brooms and dustpans clutched to their sides. ''Make your beds!'' they shouted at bewildered bystanders. ''Clean your rooms!'' But it wasn't Dawn of the Donnas — it was just another publicity stunt cooked up by the folks at Nick at Nite, the nuttiest network on cable TV. Throughout early May, Nick plugged its nightly lineup of vintage sitcoms with a blitz of Donna Reed promotions — magazine ads, TV spots, a Donna fashion show — culminating in television's first ''Donna-thon,'' in which Nick ran 140 consecutive episodes of The Donna Reed Show over seven nights. Witty, outrageous, and impossible to overlook, the ''Donna-thon'' was a classic Nick PR stunt. For five years the network has unleashed one wacky publicity campaign after another, usually with remarkable results. In fact, despite limited resources (total promotional budget: less than $5 million per year) and limited airtime (Nick is only on from 8 p.m., after the Nickelodeon children's channel signs off, until dawn), the network has pulled off one of TV's great marketing coups: It has transformed a collection of antique comedies into one of the hottest programming lineups on cable.

Nick's roster includes some of the oldest relics on the airwaves: Mr. Ed, about a typical American family saddled with a rambunctious talking horse; The Patty Duke Show, in which a pair of identical teenage cousins mischievously switch identities at crucial plot junctures; Bewitched, about a pretty young witch and her mortal husband; My Three Sons, the chronicles of a widower and his three boys; and, of course, The Donna Reed Show, which follows the squeaky-clean Stone family as they wrestle with such pressing social issues as misplaced mittens and burnt roasts. Somehow Nick manages to make all these ancient jokes zing like new.

Nick at Nite ''has been extremely clever,'' says Wayne Walley, a reporter for the trade magazine Advertising Age who covers the television industry. ''They've taken a bunch of old reruns — the dregs of the airwaves — and turned them into profitable products. That's what good advertising is all about.''

From the moment it arrived on the dial in 1985, Nick has displayed a rare flair for outlandish image-building. There was, for instance, its ''String-a-thon'' in 1988, during which viewers were asked to ''save the network'' by calling in with pledges of spare string (more than 14,000 did). There was also last year's St. Patrick's Day celebration, when Nick showed green-tinted episodes of My Three Sons (in honor of Bub O'Casey, widower Steve Douglas' Irish father-in-law). Then there was the time the network boosted its ratings for The Patty Duke Show by running interviews with the actress who played the back of Patty's head in scenes where Patty appeared as sister Kathy. (''Maybe my show was just a little too ahead of its time,'' she mused.)

''We try to come up with a different stunt every four months,'' explains Rich Cronin, the network's senior vice president for marketing. ''We have only one guiding principle: We ask ourselves, 'Is the stunt stupid enough?'''

Sitting behind his oval-shaped desk at Nick's headquarters in New York, Cronin is surrounded by the flotsam of shag-carpet culture. There's an Elvis lamp, a vintage cathode-ray tube, an electric guitar clock, and various other objects d'junk. ''We didn't want Nick at Nite to be an ordinary network,'' Cronin continues. ''We didn't want it to be some dorky channel that was completely straight about everything. We wanted it to have a sense of humor, a sense of fun. ''So we developed this idea we called 'TV Land.' We believe that in every person's brain there's this lobe where TV Land exists. It's this town where the Cleaver family from Leave It to Beaver lives down the street from the Douglases from My Three Sons and the Douglases live next door to the Posts from Mr. Ed. It's all tongue-in-cheek, of course, but we really try to believe that such a place exists. And everything we do with our advertising and promotions flows from that belief.''

Down the hall, in his own kitsch-cluttered office (a four-foot wood carving of Disney dog Pluto, a Darth Vadar helmet), Nick's creative director, Scott Webb, expresses similar sentiments. ''We never admit that Mr. Ed can't talk,'' he says. ''We never say that Patty and Kathy (of The Patty Duke Show) aren't identical twins. And that's one of the reasons we have such a loyal following. People have real strong emotional attachments to these shows — they care more about these characters than they do their own neighbors. Nick at Nite embraces that. We understand how people feel about their television sets.''

It has been an effective marketing strategy, inspiring on-air advertising campaigns that often have been funnier than the shows themselves. One TV spot for Mr. Ed claimed to reveal the talking horse's secret sexual agony (''I wish I'd been born a woman!'' he whinnied). Another promised to expose the Freudian horrors lurking inside Steve Douglas' tortured psyche. Still another pretended to discover subliminal messages hidden in The Donna Reed Show (''Drink Your Milk,'' ''Marry a Doctor'').

Nick's print campaigns have been equally offbeat. One recent magazine ad featured Mr. Ed dressed in top hat and tails, peddling his own brand of after-shave (''A trace of saddle blanket bouquet of pasture essence of stall ''). Another introduced ''The Patty Duke Time/Space Travel Institute'' (''Have twice as many friends! Attend two parties at one time! Wear the red tie and the green tie!'').

The ads clearly have had an impact on viewership. In its five years on the air, Nick's national audience has jumped from five million households to more than 50 million. Reruns that languish on other networks somehow seem to come alive on Nick: When The Patty Duke Show left another cable network for Nick, its ratings were said to have doubled overnight.

''Nick at Nite has had to operate on a very restricted budget, but they've done remarkable things,'' says cable-industry analyst Larry Gerbrandt. ''They've tapped into a very effective gimmick — this classic TV thing — and it's been very profitable for them. It's helped make the channel a fixture in cable households, with consistently high ratings.''

In fact, Nick has been so successful in marketing its TV lineup that it's expanding into other ventures: It recently distributed its own home-shopping catalog, featuring such avant-nerd products as Nick at Nite pocket protectors, bowling shirts, and refrigerator magnets.

Says Cronin, deadpan: ''We think we can market Nick at Nite the same way Batman and The Simpsons have been marketed.''

Perhaps the most telling sign of Nick's success has been the way competitors have copied its campy style. The three major networks have been experimenting lately with their own Nickish promotional spots, splashing more colorful graphics on screen and affecting a wackier sense of humor. ''The networks are definitely imitating Nick at Nite,'' says Noah Edleson, a former Nick promotions producer now working for CBS. ''They're always asking me to do Nick at Nite ads for them — that's why they hired me. They love Nick's style.''

George Schweitzer, senior vice president of communications for CBS, says, ''We like the fact that Nick's ads take an attitude. They have an edge to them. It's hard to say who influences who in this business, but Nick's campaigns have definitely impressed us.''

Last May's ''Donna-thon'' — a.k.a "Seven Days That Tidied the World" — was by far the biggest promotional campaign Nick has attempted. In addition to the parade in Chicago, the network orchestrated a series of nationwide publicity salvos, including a four-page Donna Reed Mother's Day advertising supplement in People magazine. The ballyhoo seemed to pay off: More than 40 newspapers, from the Los Angeles Times to the New York Post, carried stories on the week-long Donna Reed broadcasts, a P.R. coup worth millions.

''We're the TV-generation network,'' Cronin says. ''If we don't run 70 straight hours of Donna Reed, who will?''

dakert · 09-17-2010, 10:40 PM

TV today is Pitiful-just pitiful!

Maybe Nick at Nite (I was there right from the beginning) spoiled me on how good and fun TV could be.

DSfan · 09-19-2010, 02:04 AM

''We didn't want Nick at Nite to be an ordinary network,'' Cronin continues.

rodwayne · 09-21-2010, 11:06 AM

Oh,for the good ol' days when this network was actually good before the current "garbage" they have on now(And don't get me started about T.V.LAND).They need a 3rd NITE AT NITE network that only deals with the classics.They would see how popular it will become.

TV Knowledge Fan · 09-23-2010, 02:55 AM

..."ordinary" executives are running 'Nick at Nite' today- and they haven't the imagination their predecessors did. Their main goal is to make as much revenue from advertising- and that means scheduling repeats the same as "everyone else"....and only those of 10 to 15 years vintage. 'TV Land', which had the same fusion of ideas and momentum when it was launched in 1996, has the same mentality [and executives].

old grouch · 09-23-2010, 01:11 PM

Nick at Nite used to be unique and fun. I remember that Donna Reed Marathon.

09-17-2010, 03:57 PM	#1
benjamoon Bewitched Senior Member Join Date: Jun 15, 2000 Location: New York Posts: 1,450	An old Nick at Nite article (1990).... this is from Entertainment Weekly, I stumbled on it when I was looking for something else Doesn't it makes you sad to see how Nick at Nite has become an "ordinary" network... -------- NICK'S KNACK Looking at Nick at Nite -- Nickelodeon's late night offering brings classic television back to life By Benjamin Svetkey \| Jun 29, 1990 It looked like a scene from a deranged horror movie: Dozens of Donna Reed clones — all wearing identical high heels, kitchen aprons, and pearl necklaces — were marching down the middle of Chicago's Michigan Avenue, brooms and dustpans clutched to their sides. ''Make your beds!'' they shouted at bewildered bystanders. ''Clean your rooms!'' But it wasn't Dawn of the Donnas — it was just another publicity stunt cooked up by the folks at Nick at Nite, the nuttiest network on cable TV. Throughout early May, Nick plugged its nightly lineup of vintage sitcoms with a blitz of Donna Reed promotions — magazine ads, TV spots, a Donna fashion show — culminating in television's first ''Donna-thon,'' in which Nick ran 140 consecutive episodes of The Donna Reed Show over seven nights. Witty, outrageous, and impossible to overlook, the ''Donna-thon'' was a classic Nick PR stunt. For five years the network has unleashed one wacky publicity campaign after another, usually with remarkable results. In fact, despite limited resources (total promotional budget: less than $5 million per year) and limited airtime (Nick is only on from 8 p.m., after the Nickelodeon children's channel signs off, until dawn), the network has pulled off one of TV's great marketing coups: It has transformed a collection of antique comedies into one of the hottest programming lineups on cable. Nick's roster includes some of the oldest relics on the airwaves: Mr. Ed, about a typical American family saddled with a rambunctious talking horse; The Patty Duke Show, in which a pair of identical teenage cousins mischievously switch identities at crucial plot junctures; Bewitched, about a pretty young witch and her mortal husband; My Three Sons, the chronicles of a widower and his three boys; and, of course, The Donna Reed Show, which follows the squeaky-clean Stone family as they wrestle with such pressing social issues as misplaced mittens and burnt roasts. Somehow Nick manages to make all these ancient jokes zing like new. Nick at Nite ''has been extremely clever,'' says Wayne Walley, a reporter for the trade magazine Advertising Age who covers the television industry. ''They've taken a bunch of old reruns — the dregs of the airwaves — and turned them into profitable products. That's what good advertising is all about.'' From the moment it arrived on the dial in 1985, Nick has displayed a rare flair for outlandish image-building. There was, for instance, its ''String-a-thon'' in 1988, during which viewers were asked to ''save the network'' by calling in with pledges of spare string (more than 14,000 did). There was also last year's St. Patrick's Day celebration, when Nick showed green-tinted episodes of My Three Sons (in honor of Bub O'Casey, widower Steve Douglas' Irish father-in-law). Then there was the time the network boosted its ratings for The Patty Duke Show by running interviews with the actress who played the back of Patty's head in scenes where Patty appeared as sister Kathy. (''Maybe my show was just a little too ahead of its time,'' she mused.) ''We try to come up with a different stunt every four months,'' explains Rich Cronin, the network's senior vice president for marketing. ''We have only one guiding principle: We ask ourselves, 'Is the stunt stupid enough?''' Sitting behind his oval-shaped desk at Nick's headquarters in New York, Cronin is surrounded by the flotsam of shag-carpet culture. There's an Elvis lamp, a vintage cathode-ray tube, an electric guitar clock, and various other objects d'junk. ''We didn't want Nick at Nite to be an ordinary network,'' Cronin continues. ''We didn't want it to be some dorky channel that was completely straight about everything. We wanted it to have a sense of humor, a sense of fun. ''So we developed this idea we called 'TV Land.' We believe that in every person's brain there's this lobe where TV Land exists. It's this town where the Cleaver family from Leave It to Beaver lives down the street from the Douglases from My Three Sons and the Douglases live next door to the Posts from Mr. Ed. It's all tongue-in-cheek, of course, but we really try to believe that such a place exists. And everything we do with our advertising and promotions flows from that belief.'' Down the hall, in his own kitsch-cluttered office (a four-foot wood carving of Disney dog Pluto, a Darth Vadar helmet), Nick's creative director, Scott Webb, expresses similar sentiments. ''We never admit that Mr. Ed can't talk,'' he says. ''We never say that Patty and Kathy (of The Patty Duke Show) aren't identical twins. And that's one of the reasons we have such a loyal following. People have real strong emotional attachments to these shows — they care more about these characters than they do their own neighbors. Nick at Nite embraces that. We understand how people feel about their television sets.'' It has been an effective marketing strategy, inspiring on-air advertising campaigns that often have been funnier than the shows themselves. One TV spot for Mr. Ed claimed to reveal the talking horse's secret sexual agony (''I wish I'd been born a woman!'' he whinnied). Another promised to expose the Freudian horrors lurking inside Steve Douglas' tortured psyche. Still another pretended to discover subliminal messages hidden in The Donna Reed Show (''Drink Your Milk,'' ''Marry a Doctor''). Nick's print campaigns have been equally offbeat. One recent magazine ad featured Mr. Ed dressed in top hat and tails, peddling his own brand of after-shave (''A trace of saddle blanket bouquet of pasture essence of stall ''). Another introduced ''The Patty Duke Time/Space Travel Institute'' (''Have twice as many friends! Attend two parties at one time! Wear the red tie and the green tie!''). The ads clearly have had an impact on viewership. In its five years on the air, Nick's national audience has jumped from five million households to more than 50 million. Reruns that languish on other networks somehow seem to come alive on Nick: When The Patty Duke Show left another cable network for Nick, its ratings were said to have doubled overnight. ''Nick at Nite has had to operate on a very restricted budget, but they've done remarkable things,'' says cable-industry analyst Larry Gerbrandt. ''They've tapped into a very effective gimmick — this classic TV thing — and it's been very profitable for them. It's helped make the channel a fixture in cable households, with consistently high ratings.'' In fact, Nick has been so successful in marketing its TV lineup that it's expanding into other ventures: It recently distributed its own home-shopping catalog, featuring such avant-nerd products as Nick at Nite pocket protectors, bowling shirts, and refrigerator magnets. Says Cronin, deadpan: ''We think we can market Nick at Nite the same way Batman and The Simpsons have been marketed.'' Perhaps the most telling sign of Nick's success has been the way competitors have copied its campy style. The three major networks have been experimenting lately with their own Nickish promotional spots, splashing more colorful graphics on screen and affecting a wackier sense of humor. ''The networks are definitely imitating Nick at Nite,'' says Noah Edleson, a former Nick promotions producer now working for CBS. ''They're always asking me to do Nick at Nite ads for them — that's why they hired me. They love Nick's style.'' George Schweitzer, senior vice president of communications for CBS, says, ''We like the fact that Nick's ads take an attitude. They have an edge to them. It's hard to say who influences who in this business, but Nick's campaigns have definitely impressed us.'' Last May's ''Donna-thon'' — a.k.a "Seven Days That Tidied the World" — was by far the biggest promotional campaign Nick has attempted. In addition to the parade in Chicago, the network orchestrated a series of nationwide publicity salvos, including a four-page Donna Reed Mother's Day advertising supplement in People magazine. The ballyhoo seemed to pay off: More than 40 newspapers, from the Los Angeles Times to the New York Post, carried stories on the week-long Donna Reed broadcasts, a P.R. coup worth millions. ''We're the TV-generation network,'' Cronin says. ''If we don't run 70 straight hours of Donna Reed, who will?''
	__________________ My Blog: http://benjamonsterstv.blogspot.com/ My Site: peaktvdatabase.weebly.com My favorite TV shows: Bewitched, I Love Lucy, American Dreams, Mary Tyler Moore, The Office, Happy Days, The West Wing, Modern Family, Friday Night Lights, Friends, Mad Men, Parks and Recreation, and Parenthood

09-21-2010, 11:06 AM	#4
rodwayne Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Feb 27, 2002 Posts: 367	Oh,for the good ol' days when this network was actually good before the current "garbage" they have on now(And don't get me started about T.V.LAND).They need a 3rd NITE AT NITE network that only deals with the classics.They would see how popular it will become.
	__________________

09-23-2010, 02:55 AM	#5
TV Knowledge Fan Member Senior Member Join Date: Mar 29, 2006 Location: Long Branch, N.J. Posts: 2,577	The main problem is.... ..."ordinary" executives are running 'Nick at Nite' today- and they haven't the imagination their predecessors did. Their main goal is to make as much revenue from advertising- and that means scheduling repeats the same as "everyone else"....and only those of 10 to 15 years vintage. 'TV Land', which had the same fusion of ideas and momentum when it was launched in 1996, has the same mentality [and executives].

09-17-2010, 10:40 PM	#2
dakert Member Forum 3000 Club Member Join Date: May 10, 2007 Location: Altoona PA Posts: 3,411	TV today is Pitiful-just pitiful! Maybe Nick at Nite (I was there right from the beginning) spoiled me on how good and fun TV could be.

09-19-2010, 02:04 AM	#3
DSfan Member Senior Member Join Date: Sep 15, 2006 Location: Canada Posts: 1,204	''We didn't want Nick at Nite to be an ordinary network,'' Cronin continues.

09-23-2010, 01:11 PM	#6
old grouch Member Senior Member Join Date: May 13, 2010 Location: montana Posts: 1,877	Nick at Nite used to be unique and fun. I remember that Donna Reed Marathon.