How is Nick Doing?

[Spark Of Spirit]

I found this post on sitcomsonline about the current state of Nickelodeon:

•100 Things to Do Before High School is a good show that needs more promotion and love from the network.

•Scott Fellows hopefully doesn't end up like Dan Schneider, in that after a few shows, he exposes his flaws as a writer and creator. This is because Schneider is unable to create new, interesting characters without using his previous shows as a crutch. And they all end up as annoying, bland, uninteresting archetypes of the same characters we've seen before. This is particularly notable in Sam & Cat (a cheap cash grab that was never built to last), Henry Danger (which is inoffensive and stale), and Game Shakers (which is just plain garbage).

•In 1995, a good or great Nicktoon was to be expected. Now shows like that have become the exception, not the expectation.

•A year or two from now, The Splat will most likely become as stagnant as the 90s Are All That became.

•With Degrassi moving over to Netflix, TeenNick really has nothing else to draw fans in.

•Nickelodeon's scheduling practices (especially regarding The Thundermans) are atrocious. Basically, this involves a lot of shuffling and lack of promotion.

•The imports that Nick has aired, while cheap (so cheap that they can post profits no matter how bad the ratings are) and presumably easy to make, none-the-less suck.

•Not only did the utter collapse of Sam & Cat that put the network in a bind, but their conclusion that (based on what they felt was happening across the board) that the tween-teen demo was pretty much dead. In other words, the shows that followed (both live-action and animated ) feel more placed into middle-school territory and the pre-tween/tween demo. In effect, days of Nick catering to an all-age demo with adult appeal appear to be done for the time being.

Here's the original post.

All of which are fairly understandable and straightforward.

Right now I'm only paying attention to the newer TMNT and Harvey Beaks, but that's still a step up from a few years ago when I wasn't bothering with anything.

[Avaitor]

Apparently the new Alvin show is doing pretty okay, a little better than most of Nick's recent originals. I expect it to go the way of their Dreamworks shows and burn out in a year or two, but who knows.

Also, the Splat has been getting very weak ratings. I wasn't expecting huge numbers, but it looks pretty alarming for how much Nick has been promoting it.

[Daxdiv]

I kinda like that new Alvin show in all honesty. Nothing about it fills me with regret for watching it for 30 minutes, unlike the majority of the network that is.

But yeah, I do agree with the article that there is nothing on the network that gives off an all ages vibe from their programming, unless you like to count your jokes about how 1 of the creators of Bella and the Bulldogs created a softcore porn film about cuckolding. That and how it does feel like CN does help Teen Titans Go with all the promos with it, while with Nick.... I don't get that impression from any of their shows that isn't even a year old yet.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I kinda like that new Alvin show in all honesty. Nothing about it fills me with regret for watching it for 30 minutes, unlike the majority of the network that is.

It's fairly close to the old 80s show (even uses the old theme) with much the same staff, so that might account for it. The 80s show was a pretty good kid cartoon. The Garfield Show could have taken some lessons from this one. It's not going to set the world on fire, but compared to most of their other programming, it does its job well.

Of course I still like TMNT and Harvey Beaks much more, but it sure beats more Spongebob reruns.

[Daxdiv]

I kinda like that new Alvin show in all honesty. Nothing about it fills me with regret for watching it for 30 minutes, unlike the majority of the network that is.

It's fairly close to the old 80s show (even uses the old theme) with much the same staff, so that might account for it. The 80s show was a pretty good kid cartoon. The Garfield Show could have taken some lessons from this one. It's not going to set the world on fire, but compared to most of their other programming, it does its job well.

Yeah, my impression of the new Alvin show is that's it's like the 80's show but updated for modern times in a good way. Mostly with technology and the topics they handle in the episode, this is the kind of stuff I expect a revival series to tackle.

[Peanutbutter]

Wait, when is Degrassi coming to Netflix?! I've been wanting to get into that show for years!!

[Avaitor]

The Loud House doesn't have a thread? Ah well.

Anyway, apparently it's getting a movie now. Didn't thus just premiere a year ago?

[Daikun]

The Nicktoons channel might disappear soon.

[Daxdiv]

Well, it's probably for the best. Nicktoons has really lost it's focus by being a dumping ground for cartoons that don't reach Spongebob and Loud House levels of popularity right out of the gate. That & the live action. I wonder if they're gonna rebrand as something else.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, they've never seemed to know what to do with this channel, have they? It went from a dumping ground for their older cartoons, to a Toonami Lite, to basically Nickelodeon 2.0. And there might have been more shifts in theming than that.

Then again, TeenNick has its own identity issues as well. Losing DeGrassi definitely didn't help things. The Nick Jr channel seems to have been their most consistent spin-off in vision.

[Daxdiv]

In all fairness, Nick Jr is a concept you can't screw up on paper. Nick has a lot of original shows aimed at pre-schoolers over it's years of inception & giving it a 24 hour outlet is pretty logical. Even with having rival channels like Disney Junior the Channel, Sprout, & streaming, it's still somewhat a viable option. TeenNick on the other hand... yeah, it and Nicktoons existing together doesn't make much sense since TeenNick to me has more or less been the dumping ground for their live action kidcoms, especially during the day hours.

[Avaitor]

I caught up with Nick Knacks, and got a little hungry for more Nick-based content, so I watched some of Defunctland's videos. I'm not as big of a fan- the narration feels colder and comes off a little flatter than Greg's, and I just feel like you don't get as much bang for your buck as you do with his videos. Your general Nick Knacks contains a strong balance between overview, well-documented research, and analysis, while I feel like the latter two elements get less focus in most of these videos.

But I was interested in their Nick Hotel video. I didn't stay at the place, but I did a brief tour of it around 2010, and even then it was looking pretty dated. Rugrats, Blue's Clues, and even Wild Thornberrys still had a very strong presence here, which I found cool, but somewhat surprising considering how long gone those shows were at this point. And it's not like now when they're focusing heavily on nostalgia- Nick and Holiday Inn just didn't update the place that much, and frankly, it's not like there was much to update with. Granted, the Turtles, Power Rangers, and a little bit of Paw Patrol did eventually make their way there, but the network is still in identity crisis mode, not letting newer shows get off the ground unless they're instant megahits. The Loud House has made a niche for itself, but that feels more like a fluke than anything. And without that many current hits, how valuable can the Nickelodeon brand be to allow something like this to cost Disney-level prices? Clearly SpongeBob still matters enough to get butts in seats, but one show alone does not make a hit channel. Even two or three, with Loud House and TMNT, doesn't feel like enough.

So yeah, I'm curious to see how Cartoon Network's hotel will do.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So there's a chance the 80s TMNT show will be airing on Nick.

[Rynnec]

The best thing they'll have aired in years.

[Avaitor]

Watch it get better ratings than new Loud House.