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Nick Jr. Channel

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This article is about the standalone spun-out American channel. For the weekday morning block on Nickelodeon, see Nick Jr.

Nick Jr. Channel
Logo used since September 4, 2023[a]
CountryUnited States
Broadcast areaNationwide
HeadquartersOne Astor Plaza New York City, New York, U.S.
Programming
Language(s)English
Spanish (via SAP audio track)
Picture format1080i HDTV
(downscaled to letterboxed 480i for the SDTV feed)
Ownership
OwnerParamount Media Networks (Paramount Global)
ParentNickelodeon Group
Sister channels
List
History
LaunchedSeptember 28, 2009; 15 years ago (2009-09-28)
ReplacedNoggin (channel)
Links
Websitewww.nickjr.com
Availability
Streaming media
Affiliated Streaming ServiceParamount+
YouTube TV, FuboTV, Philo, Sling TV, DirecTV Stream, Hulu + Live TV

The Nick Jr. Channel, sometimes shortened to Nick Jr., is an American pay television channel spun off from Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. programming block and owned and operated by the Nickelodeon Group, a sub-division of the Paramount Media Networks division of Paramount Global. Launched on September 28, 2009 in the channel space previously held by Noggin, the channel primarily targets preschoolers and toddlers ages 2 to 6 years old. Its lineup features a mix of original programming, along with series from the Nick Jr. block; to avoid confusion between the two different entities, the separate channel has been identified on-air as the "Nick Jr. Channel" since March 2018 to the present day for promos and until September 2023 for the on-screen graphic.

The Noggin brand was relaunched in 2015 as a streaming media service and acts as a separate sister brand. Programming from Noggin is distinct from those of Nick Jr.'s: it mainly carried pre-teen programs at its launch,[1] and the revived streaming service features a variety of exclusive series. From May 2021 to March 2022, the Nick Jr. channel aired an hour-long block of programming from the Noggin app every Friday.[2][3][4] The block, titled "Noggin Hour,"[2] featured shows such as Noggin Knows and Kinderwood.[5]

Both the Nick Jr. channel and the Nick Jr. block are currently running, with the latter airing weekdays on Nickelodeon from 7:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET (those hours vary during the summer months, other school break periods and on major national holidays), having traditional commercial breaks for certain programs.

As of November 2023, Nick Jr. is available to approximately 54,000,000 pay television households in the United States-down from its 2013 peak of 77,000,000 households.[6]

Evolution of Nickelodeon
1977Pinwheel broadcasts on Qube
1979Nickelodeon is launched by Warner-Amex Satellite Entertainment
1984Nickelodeon introduces its Balloon font logo
1985Nick at Nite is launched
1986Double Dare premieres; Viacom gains full ownership of the network
1987The Big Ballot (later known as the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards) premieres
1988The programming block Nick Jr. is launched
1991Nickelodeon debuted their "Nicktoons" brand with Doug, Rugrats and Ren & Stimpy premiering
1992The programming block SNICK was launched
1994Nickelodeon launches The Big Help
1996Nickelodeon released its first feature-length film in theaters, Harriet the Spy
1996Blue's Clues premieres on Nick Jr.
1999Noggin, a joint venture with Sesame Workshop, is launched
1999SpongeBob SquarePants premieres
2000Dora the Explorer premieres on Nick Jr.
2001TEENick is launched
2002The N is launched on Noggin and the Nicktoons channel is launched
2005Nickelodeon premieres Avatar: The Last Airbender
2009Nickelodeon goes through a major rebrand: TEENick and The N merged to form TeenNick, Noggin was replaced by the Nick Jr. Channel, and Nicktoons Network became Nicktoons
2009Nickelodeon acquired the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise
2010Nickelodeon began co-producing the Winx Club franchise
2012Viacom and DirecTV have a contract dispute, causing Nickelodeon to be taken off the service for several days while an agreement was reached.
2015Nickelodeon revived Noggin as a streaming service
2023Nickelodeon introduced a new take on their classic splat branding
2024Noggin shut down

History

Nick Jr. block (1988–present)

Main article: Nick Jr.

Since its inception in 1977, Nickelodeon's channel space had aired preschool-oriented programs, including Pinwheel, which was their first original series. These were usually played on weekday mornings when older children were in school and younger children were not. This block ran from 8:00 am to 2:00 pm. On January 4, 1988, Nickelodeon debuted a name for its preschool block: Nick Junior. Between September 1988 and mid-1989, the name was shortened to Nick Jr. on-air.[7]

At launch, the block mostly showed imported series purchased from other companies. Eureeka's Castle was the first original series that Nickelodeon made for the block. Brown Johnson, the former vice president of Nick Jr., stated in a 2000 interview that after Eureeka ended production, Nick Jr. became "a neglected daypart" compared to the main Nickelodeon.[8] "Without the investment of energy or money, the block floundered until 1994 when the network poured $30 million into a full-scale relaunch," said Johnson.[8]

On September 5, 1994, the Nick Jr. block began its relaunch and introduced Face, its first host and no longer ran commercial breaks as intermissions during shows.[9] Gullah Gullah Island and Allegra's Window, the second and third original series made for Nick Jr., premiered. They resulted in 50% rating gains for the block. From then onward, Nickelodeon continued to create its own productions for Nick Jr. and foreign-made imports were phased out. Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer became ratings draws for both the block and Nickelodeon as a whole.

Before gaining its own spin-off network, the Nick Jr. block extended to several other networks: Nick Jr. on CBS from 2000 to 2006, and Nick Jr. on Noggin from 2003 to 2009. The Nick Jr. on CBS block ended on September 9, 2006, when CBS replaced its Nick Jr. programming with KOL Secret Slumber Party.[10] Nick Jr. series continued to appear on Noggin until its closure in 2009, when the Nick Jr. channel replaced it.

Nick Jr. channel (2009–present)

On February 23, 2009, Nickelodeon announced that Noggin would be replaced by a channel named after the Nick Jr. block. The intention was to bring the channel in line with the Nickelodeon brand identity. 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.[11]

When the Nick Jr. channel debuted on September 28, 2009, at 6:00 a.m. ET, a new logo was debuted and designed by New York-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.[11] Until 2012, the Nick Jr. channel retained Noggin's on-air branding style and played several of its programs, most notably the mascots Moose and Zee. It also continued not to accept traditional advertising or marginalize closing credits for promotion of other shows on the channel.

On March 1, 2012, the Nick Jr. channel received a new rebrand produced by Gretel Inc. Jessica DiCicco became the network's announcer, and the Moose and Zee mascots were completely dropped after nine years, removing one of the last vestiges of Noggin; as a result, some of the interstitial learning activities that originally featured Moose's narration (like the Puzzle Time segments) were recycled and replaced by her narration. The channel's slogan changed from "It's Like Preschool On TV" to "The Smart Place To Play" (which was also used as the branding for the Nick Jr. block), while several shows — The Upside Down Show, Oswald, Jack's Big Music Show, Franklin, Toot & Puddle and Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends — were pulled from the lineup; most of them would return later that year, while the former could still be seen on the channel's website at the time.

At this point, programming began to be hosted by characters from Nick Jr. shows. The Nick Jr. channel also began incorporating programming promotions and short features on that date; seven months later, on October 1, 2012, it started airing limited traditional advertising (for companies such as ABCMouse, Kmart, Chuck E. Cheese's, Nabi, Clorox, Walmart, Lysol and Playskool) in the form of underwriter sponsorships airing in-between shows, whereas its parent network airs longer traditional advertising.

The "Nick Jr. Channel" logo, used on-air from 2018 until 2023.

On May 21, 2018, the channel refreshed their imaging with new interstitial pieces and updated curriculum notices, and began to promote themselves as the "Nick Jr. Channel" audibly and visually to avoid confusion with the Nickelodeon block.[12]

On September 4, 2023, the channel rebranded to use the refreshed splat logo, as well as new bumpers and curriculum boards (to keep in line with the Nickelodeon block, which began using the new branding on July 5, 2023). On the same day, the "Nick Jr. Channel" logo was changed to one reading simply "Nick Jr." for the first time since 2009. However, new promos continue to refer to the channel as the "Nick Jr. Channel."

NickMom block (2012–2015)

Main article: NickMom

From October 1, 2012, to September 28, 2015, a four-hour block of parent-targeted shows called NickMom aired from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. ET. The NickMom name started out with a humor website in 2011[13] and the four-hour time slot aired comedies like Instant Mom and NickMom Night Out.

On September 9, 2015, the social media channels of NickMom announced that the four-hour weeknight block on the Nick Jr. channel, along with the NickMom website, would end operations by the end of September 28, 2015, due to Viacom's 2015 cutbacks involving acquired programming and also due to NickMom's low ratings[14] with the time vacated by NickMom returned to traditional Nick Jr. programming like Dora the Explorer, Blue's Clues, Team Umizoomi, and Bubble Guppies. In the early morning of September 28, 2015, NickMom ended its 3-year run at 2:00 a.m. ET, with an airing of the film Guarding Tess. No sign off message was shown; after the film Guarding Tess, it faded straight into an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba! at its end. NickMom's former website address is now used as a redirect to Nickelodeon's site for parental resources.

Following NickMom's closure, the Nick Jr. channel increased the amount of traditional advertising it aired, but also began scheduling programs in an inversion of the "off-the-clock" format where the network shortened some of its commercial breaks, allowing the network to air more programming. The "off-the-clock" format was previously adopted by various Viacom networks, such as TV Land, Nick at Nite and Comedy Central (though in a reversed form, the scheduling format for those channels was designed to add extra advertising loads).

Noggin Hour block (2021–2022)

On May 28, 2021, the Nick Jr. channel introduced an hour-long block of programming from the Noggin app every Friday.[4] The block was usually titled "Noggin Hour"[2] and was retitled "Noggin Presents" on days when it ran longer than an hour.[3] Series featured in the timeslot included the Noggin originals Kinderwood[5] and Noggin Knows, as well as the acquired shows Hey Duggee and JoJo & Gran Gran. Noggin interstitials played during commercial breaks, and a purple screen bug reading "On Noggin" was shown toward the beginning of each show.

Programming

Main article: List of programs broadcast by the Nick Jr. Channel

The Nick Jr. channel schedule mainly features reruns from Nickelodeon's library of preschool programming, along with a few original series exclusive to the channel. As of 2022, the channel's lineup includes The Adventures of Paddington, Baby Shark's Big Show!, Blaze and the Monster Machines, Blue's Clues & You!, Bubble Guppies, Face's Music Party, Hey Duggee, Kiri & Lou, Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig, Ryan's Mystery Playdate, Santiago of the Seas, and Team Umizoomi.

Service Description
Nick Jr. HD		 Nick Jr. HD is the high-definition simulcast feed of Nick Jr. that broadcasts in the 1080i resolution format; the feed first began broadcasting on August 1, 2013.[15][16] Like other Viacom-owned networks that have high-definition feeds, 16:9 sourced content broadcasts in HD, while 4:3 sourced content broadcasts pillarboxed. As of 2018, many providers carry the high-definition feed and downscale it for the standard-definition feed, broadcasting in 16:9 letterboxed to fit the 4:3 ratio.
Nick Jr. On Demand Nick Jr. on Demand is the network's video-on-demand service, which is available on most subscription providers.
Nick Jr. on Pluto TV Advertising-supported streaming service Pluto TV, which Viacom acquired in January 2019, added a free version of Nick Jr. on May 1, consisting mainly of older library and archive content.[17] There are also several channels on the service devoted solely to one Nick Jr. series around the clock, and overall advertising is reduced on these channels, as is done on the cable services.
Paramount+ Programming from Nick Jr. was slowly introduced to what was then CBS All Access in November 2019 after the closure of the Viacom/CBS merger,[18][19] and was a part of Paramount+ from its March 4, 2021 launch.
Noggin An educational brand launched by Nickelodeon and Sesame Workshop. Its flagship channel launched on February 2, 1999 and occupied the channel space that is now held by the Nick Jr. channel. The Noggin brand was placed on hiatus in 2009 and relaunched as a separate streaming service on March 5, 2015; it has remained separate from Paramount+. In May 2021, the Nick Jr. channel introduced a block of programming from the Noggin app every Friday, called "Noggin Hour."[2]

International

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, 2011, and on Telekom Malaysia Berhad's Unifi TV in Malaysia on June 1, 2011. The channel launched aggressively to the rest of Southeast Asia later.[20]

An African version of Nick Jr. was launched on September 30, 2014, along with Nicktoons.[21] In Poland, Nick Jr. is available on Platforma Canal+ since March 2013. In Romania, Nick Jr. is available on UPC Romania since October 24, 2014. In Canada, Nick Jr. was launched as a programming block on the local version of Nickelodeon.

Versions of Nick Jr. also exist in the United Kingdom and Ireland, Germany, The Netherlands & Flanders, India, France, Italy, Latin America, and Australia. On November 3, 2017, Nick Jr. launched in Portugal.[22] In 2023, the European Nick Jr. channels started to merge together, sharing more and more the same schedule between some versions.

Nick Jr. is also available in Japan in the form of a programming block on the Japanese version of Nickelodeon.

International versions of the TV channel include:

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The logo's wordmark has been in use since September 28, 2009. Additionally, this logo is a variant meant to be used for white backgrounds; the main variant has a white (for Nick) and baby blue (for Jr.) wordmark in conjunction with a fully orange splat.

References

  1. ^ Barker, Kate. "Noggin spawns original education for older kids". Kidscreen. Brunico Communications.
  2. ^ a b c d "NickJr.com TV Schedule 2021". NickJr.com. May 28, 2021. Archived from the original on May 28, 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Nick Jr. TV Schedule 2022". NickJr.com. March 11, 2022. Archived from the original on March 11, 2022.
  4. ^ a b "Noggin Knows on Nick Jr". The Futon Critic. 2021. completed airing its first season on 6/11/21
  5. ^ a b "Kinderwood on Nick Jr". The Futon Critic. 2021. 6/4/21: Dandy Dandelion (R)
  6. ^ "U.S. cable network households (universe), 1990 – 2023". wrestlenomics.com. May 14, 2024. Retrieved July 28, 2019.
  7. ^ "The Rugrats Timeline -- Through 1989". 2012-06-16. Archived from the original on June 16, 2012. Retrieved 2015-07-29.
  8. ^ a b Cable Vision. Cahners Business Information. 2000.
  9. ^ Nick to spend $30 million on kids (page 53) from Broadcasting & Cable
  10. ^ "DIC, KOL to Produce on CBS". Mediaweek. June 21, 2006. Archived from the original on July 13, 2006. Retrieved August 10, 2013.
  11. ^ a b "Nickelodeon unveils new logo". Variety. July 29, 2009.
  12. ^ "Nickelodeon USA Debuts Nick Jr. Rebrand".
  13. ^ "NickMom | Humor & Funny Stuff for Moms". Archived from the original on 2011-11-26.
  14. ^ "Unlike your laundry pile, some things do come to an end. We're sad to say NickMom will be going off-air and offline at the end of the month". Tweet from network's Twitter account. 9 September 2015. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
  15. ^ "DIRECTV HD Channel Anticipation (Official Q3-13 Thread)". DBSTalk Community. October 2013. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  16. ^ "Official AVS National HD Channel Lineups – Cable/DBS/Fiber/IPTV – Updated 10/2/14 – AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews". www.avsforum.com. 31 May 2014. Retrieved April 8, 2019.
  17. ^ Spangler, Todd (2019-04-29). "Viacom Launching 14 Free Channels on Pluto TV, Sets Broad Digital Originals Slate". Variety. Retrieved 2019-04-30.
  18. ^ "Nickelodeon Content Coming to CBS All Access". The Hollywood Reporter. November 25, 2019. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
  19. ^ "CBS All Access to Add Nickelodeon Children's Programming". November 25, 2019. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
  20. ^ Viacom Debuts Nick Jr. And MTVNHD
  21. ^ "Nick Jr. and Nicktoons to launch in South Africa". Retrieved 27 October 2014.
  22. ^ Clover, Julian (November 2, 2017) "Nick Jr debuts in Portugal" Broadband TV News.
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