Nickelodeon Boned the Fish When...

[TMC]

http://www.bonethefish.com/viewtopics.php?734#

This is a channel with programming for children and teenagers.

[TVFactFan]

In the fall of 2002 after the SUMMER MARATHONS

[Tap Dancer]

Got rid of the 90's nicktoons

It was great in the '90s with shows like Clarissa Explains It All, All That (the first few seasons), Kenan & Kel, Ren & Stimpy, Salute Your Shorts... I wish they'd show the classic shows; I can't watch the garbage they show now.

[tebjr]

I lost all interest in Nick when YCDTOT was dropped.

[TMC]

Personally, Nickelodeon "boned the fish" around the time that Cyma Zarghami's regime came in around 2006. Here's some links to get a better idea of what I'm talking about:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...on/uYFFrMHSk9o

Meanwhile, a decline in Nickelodeon’s programming began towards the second half of the last decade. Cyma Zarghami is particularly noted for this; she became the president of children’s programming at Viacom in 2006, which is explained to have been the beginning of the network’s downfall. She obsesses over the happiness over females and appears to focus solely on that aspect of her career. She began a change known as the MTV effect; this involved changing the programming on Nickelodeon and its blocks, while dramatically altering the actual programming of MTV. Subsequently, this resulted in a few changes; firstly, it caused all of the Nickelodeon blocks to ultimately become individual channels (except for Nick@Nite); secondly, it changed the type of programming from individually unique, innovative cartoons, Nickcoms, and game shows, to cash cows, “S***coms” that revolve around inaccurately portrayed teenage life, music, or the internet, and programming that will often be unloved and either cancelled or discarded to a sister network; thirdly, she wanted the complete abandonment of the splat logo, because "We wanted to clean it up and allow Nick to be the stamp on all of these channels," and "In asking ourselves if everything could live under the splat, we decided that the splat was dated," she said. "It just couldn't be done in a streamlined way." Except Cyma Zargahmi fails to understand the symbolism of the splat logo. Over the years of the splat logo’s use, there have been many variations of the same logo, varying in shape and incarnation among Nickelodeon, its sister networks, and its programming. The significance of the splat logo is that it did not have to always use the iconic splat. The unique design allowed it to become virtually anything, and it symbolized a wide diversity of programming able to uniquely diversity yet stay united under a common name. This is why the splat logo of Nickelodeon is so iconic and memorable. Yet under the MTV effect, which forced more musical-based media in Nickelodeon, the network slowly began to lose its variety of programming. Nickelodeon’s Cash Cows, such as Spongebob Squarepants, The Fairly Odd Parents, ICarly, Victorious, Degrassi, and Dora the Explorer all began to be focused on more, while other shows were either cancelled or reduced in reruns.

To diminish the demographic-oriented blocks and the sister networks, they merged the two; while The N and Noggin were relatable to TEENick and Nick Jr. respectively, they sister networks were not meant to fall under the same name due to their dramatically differing programming. Nicktoons Network also fell under this category, although it was mistakenly associated with Nickelodeon due to its splat logo and reruns of older Nick programming. Cyma Zargahmi began to move the blocks that were on Nickelodeon to the sister networks; although the programming remained on the main channel, the Nicktoons and TEENick blocks were discontinued so she could rebrand all four networks in fall 2009. She forced these networks under one common appearance to encourage conformity, as well as have the cash cows infect the other networks, in addition to the already-existing cash cows air more often.

Cyma doesn’t realize that if she had not altered the demographics for the main and sister networks, there would not be a need for rebranding Nickelodeon. In fact, ICarly, Victorious, and even Dora the Explorer became Cash Cows under her command, and due to her obsession of girl power. “I think for all kids, but for girls in particular, that the opportunities presented to them and the people around them are critically important to their success, particularly as tweens.” Not only does this give an intimation of being sexist, but she is also completely ignorant to positive influences. In fact, her cash cows actually destroyed opportunities in a sense, and made tweens think they had to be more like what they were seeing more often on TV.

“Girls today need to have a great opinion of themselves, no matter what, they need to have confidence in what they want to do, and they need to have confidence in what they don’t know yet.” Which is like saying Adolf Hitler should be proud for killing 8 million Jews, whether he knew or not, or even considered, who or how he might be hurting others. This blind confidence boosts the ignorance to “justify” the expansion of the cash cows, and would ultimately give other networks an alleged justification for creating cash cows themselves. “And they need to be able to ask a lot of questions, and they need people to be able to ask those questions of. Girls need great role models, girls need opportunities, and they need to be inspired along every step of the way to do great things.” On the contrary, Nickelodeon’s leading female role models, Miranda Cosgrove and Victoria Justice, play the roles of ignorant teenagers who only find happiness through fame or musical talent, and often make irrational decisions without any parental consent or guidance. In fact, Victoria Justice has been seen wearing more revealing clothing than most women in adult films. “I think the more that girls are encouraged to do anything and everything that boys are able to do is also a great thing.” In other words, she is attempting reverse sexism. It can be conjectured that her prejudice towards males in Nickelodeon programming may have something to do with her Iranian Heritage, more specifically the heavy Muslim influence in that area. Additionally, religion plays a minor role in networking, although more in Disney Channel than any of the three mainstream networks at the time. It is important to remember that Nickelodeon is iconic because it had a great representation of kids’ interests and desires, while giving important life lessons in their shows so kids could truly learn what is good for them and others. Modern Nickelodeon is deliberately dramatically different from the old network because Cyma wants to throw away true fan representation in favor of appeasing adults. Mainstream media is purposely forcing cash cows and conformity down everyone’s throats, and it is important to have morality behind television production.

[Dude111]

Originally Posted by TVFactFan

In the fall of 2002 after the SUMMER MARATHONS

Also this SPONGEBOB CRAP!!!!


Oh my,terrible!!

[TKMetal]

The over-reliance on certain series and A.D.D. programming choices have damaged them greatly in the last couple years (Though the Netflix deal is the scapegoat). Now they are cannibalizing the sister networks. It's a mess.

As for Cyma Zarghami, she's been a constant at Nick for nearly 30 years.

[TVFactFan]

When they added the New Adventures Old Christine

[TMC]

Originally Posted by TKMetal

The over-reliance on certain series and A.D.D. programming choices have damaged them greatly in the last couple years (Though the Netflix deal is the scapegoat). Now they are cannibalizing the sister networks. It's a mess.

As for Cyma Zarghami, she's been a constant at Nick for nearly 30 years.

Just because Cyma Zarghami has been w/ Nick for many years before becoming president doesn't exactly excuse or exempt the actual job performance that she has done when she actually elevated to a bigger position of power (and logically, has more influence over what goes on the channel).

[TMC]

http://www.toonzone.net/forums/nickt...ed-2013-a.html

1. ANIMATION NO. 1
Nick refocused on developing and cultivating its animation. Through the collapse, it was all SBSP and over a dozen live action shows. But since Summer 2012, Nick has launched four top-rated Nicktoons in LoK, TMNT, FOP (Season 9), and SJC. SBSP, FOP, SJC and TMNT are four of the top five cartoons this year and have solid fan bases. Nick will add four more Nicktoons in 2014.

2. CONSISTENT PREMIERES/BLOCKS/SCHEDULIES
Nick was plagued by pulling new episodes last minute, taking shows off schedule, airing premieres randomly on different days and times, and putting shows on long hiatuses. Now, every Nick show airs during an established premiere block, day, time and generally gets two to three premieres a month as well as regular repeats.

3. AGGRESSIVE ADVERTISING/PROMOTIONS
Nick launched shows and premieres with poor, minimal or no promotion. But from TMNT on, Nick has been aggressive in advertising new shows and new episodes. Every program on air has had moderate to heavy promotions at some point with the core receiving solid overall advertising. KCAs, SaC, SJC, TTM, Swindle, Jinxed, and SBSP specials in particular saw huge pushes.

4. QUICK EXTENSIONS AND RENEWALS
Nick cancelled many shows over the last two years (2013 especially), but they also made quick investments in others. LoK, TMNT, SJC, SaC, TTM and THH received early episode extensions and renewals, allowing creative teams to plan, fan bases to build and minimal hiatuses.

5. UNIQUE BRAND
Nick now has a unique brand of promos, bumpers and art that makes them distinct from competition. No longer are they only using music clips. Instead, Nick’s new brand is cartoonish, comedic, random and quirky - reminiscent to 90s Nick.

6. PROGRAMS MOVING FORWARD
Yes, Nick has cancelled, ended and shipped almost two dozen shows since 2010. But in the process, Nick has established its core (SBSP, FOP, LoK, TMNT, SJC, RI, SaC, THH, TTM, PR). The network is fresh (only SBSP and FOP prior to 2012) and with a handful of shows joining in 2014, this is Nick’s longterm lineup.

7. PROGRAM DIVERSITY
Nick tried hard to find the next SBSP and the next music/superstar themed sitcom. They also relied too much on CGI cartoons and Dreamworks properties, while overusing creators like Hartman and Schneider (no disrespect to either). Shows like FBaCC, Planet Sheen, Fred, and Bucket and Skinner were geared toward SBSP fans; HTR was the third music show; and PoM/KFP and FOP/TP were too similar. But now on animation, Nick has comedy (SBSP/FOP/SJC) and action (TMNT/LOK), and the sitcoms have distinct premises.

8. NEW CHILD STARS
The iCarly, Victorious and BTR casts aged considerably while on Nick. The shows – which probably aired longer than they should’ve – likely lost aging fans to more mature programming, while the younger audiences couldn’t relate to older casts. Now, all three sitcoms (plus SDR/IM of NaN) have over a dozen child actors that could be the network’s future. Although the older McCurdy and Grande are the only true superstars, Nick has a group to work with.

9. ORIGINAL MOVIES
Quality original movies were missing. However, A Fairly Odd Christmas, Swindle and Jinxed were all ratings hits and generally well received. Imperative for Nick to produce original movies that can begin or push the their actors’ careers, while creating big ratings events for the network.

10. AIRING THEATRICAL MOVIES
Theatrical movies have been ratings hits for competition, but Nick would only air Spongebob: The Movie and Rugrats in Paris. But Nick aired a bunch this year, and regardless of the quality, all garnered great ratings. Nick will be more competitive with an expanded movie library incorporated into the schedule.

[jonathan c herron]

i remember the good old days of nick
ycdtot , mr wizzard world, pinwheel,standby lights camera action ,
nick rocks, danger mouse, Special Delivery,
those was the good old days of nick

[SitcomsOffline]

I don't think there was a particular point where Nickelodeon "Jumped the Bone."

Nickelodeon hit its peak from 1993-1999 and has been on a downward spiral since.

[tvfreak1987]

.....it became the Spongebob channel.

[TMC]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2487090/.../225210735?p=1

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2487090/...2694#225212694

Nickelodeon's main downfall was they became complacent toward the end of the century and were slow to react to new and emerging trends fast enough to capitalize on them.

Disney struck gold with Hilary Duff/Lizzie Maguire and the (then) untapped tween girl demographic that was revealing itself at the start of the millennium and capitalized on it by producing diverse shows (mostly comedy, but some drama, suspense, etc.) that continued to build on this new demographic once Lizzie ended e.g. That's So Raven (2004), Phil of the Future (2005), etc.

These efforts hit its peak with High School Musical and Hannah Montana in 2006, where it was just a perfect storm of products and an rapt audience to buy those products (movies, DVDs, iTunes songs, CD Soundtracks, etc.) en masse.

So, the basic strategy Disney used was to continually nurture its key demographic it had stumbled onto in the early 2000s to its ultimate conclusion around 2009, 2010 when that era finally started to die down.

Nickelodeon was slow to react to this change / new demographic and probably wouldn't have reacted at all if it wasn't for Dan Schneider, and his various efforts e.g. Zoey 101 (2005), Drake & Josh (2006) and ultimately iCarly (2007) which actually beat Disney during the ratings war on numerous occasions.

Fast forward to now and we are once again witnessing another shift, but I don't know to what, exactly. Perhaps it hasn't revealed itself yet, but it's obvious (to me) shows that seemed like slam dunks just a year, or six months ago aren't delivering on their promises ratings-wise for Disney.

Nickelodeon is capitalizing on this by having shows that aren't worse than Disney shows, but not exactly stand out, either. This is all verifiable by the weekly ratings and is no longer subjective opinion, anymore.

So, what should Nickelodeon do next?

I don't know.

For once, I'm not going to play armchair TV exec because this is uncharted territory BOTH networks are entering into and there are no real patterns, or past indicators that recommend a specific course of action either way.

I do agree Nickelodeon... And Disney... Need a more diverse line-up of live-action shows, but a lot of this has to do with the slowly recovering economy that also hit the entertainment biz harder than most people know. Sitcoms are cheap to produce, so this is why they dominate kids TV just like so-called reality TV dominates (or used to dominate) broadcast shortly after the crash of 2008.

[TMC]

The consensus here seems to be that Cyma Zarghami has managed to dig Nickelodeon into a hole. But the question is, would it be better if Herb Scannell was still running it?

He was the president of Nick from '96-'06, and a lot of fans believe he started the network's decline in quality: canceling Invader Zim and Rocko's Modern Life, oversaturating the network with Klasky-Csupo, converting SNICK into SNICK House, phasing out the game shows, bringing back All That and Rugrats for lesser-quality episodes, closing down Nick Studios, etc.

Fans are pretty conflicted on him. Some think that he caused Nick to crash and burn in 1998, while others consider 1998-2004 a "Silver Age" of sorts. It was flawed, but there was still some quality programming, most of all Hey Arnold and SpongeBob seasons 1-3. What do you think?