Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Nick ... Nick ... Nick ...

Nickelodeon.

... Nick had the top four series among Kids 2-11, led by SpongeBob SquarePants, which earned a 5.3/1.7M with Kids 2-11 and 3.3M total viewers. Sanjay and Craig came in second with Kids 2-11 (4.7/1.5M) and drew 2.8M total viewers. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the third leading animated series with Kids 2-11 (4.7/1.5M) and scored 3M total viewers. Rabbids Invasion rounded out the top four spots with Kids 2-11 (4.6/1.5M), while drawing 2.6M total viewers. ...

Wallykazam!, the net’s brand-new curriculum-driven series teaching literacy, topped the month as TV’s number-one preschool show among Kids 2-5 (6.9/853K, +50%). At number two, was Paw Patrol which averaged a 6.8/845K with preschoolers and posted ratings increases of +45% over a year ago. ...

Additionally, Nick launched a brand-new animated series this month, Breadwinners, the story of two booty-shaking ducks who deliver bread in a jet-fueled rocket van, which scored the number two spot for the week (behind only SpongeBob SquarePants) with Kids 2-11 ...

Nick, revived from earlier doldrums, has been hiring artists for newer shows going into production (TAG recently hosted 20+ new employees at a "New Member Lunch.")

But funny thing. A lot of the new productions are hand-drawn shows. It wasn't long ago that Nick was going all-in with CG animation. Traditional-looking animation was so o-ver. Programming was going to be CG all or most of the time.)

Yet oddly enough ...

Computer Graphic images haven't quite worked out as originally planned. The channel certainly has its share, but like other television cartoon studios, Nick has come to find that CG, though boffo on theater screens, doesn't necessarily pull big ratings at home. Less expensive hand-drawn cartoons often do as well: Spongebob continues to prosper. Breadwinners, defiantly old school, has done fine in the ratings. Wallykazam and TMNT are pulling nice numbers, but the question hovers: In television, is more expensive CG worth the trouble?

A Nick staffer related:

The CG department on Third Street [in Burbank] is smaller than it was eight months ago. Wallykazam artists are being put on hiatus. Turtles is downsizing, since it's in season three. Problem with that is the show is still introducing new characters and locations. And staff has been hired away by DreamWorks Animation TV. ...

Maybe the population of the Nick Third Street studio is down, but Nickelodeon still pursues CG shows. There's the recently renewed Rabbids Invasion from Ubisoft in France, and now this:

PGS Entertainment has announced the sale of the new CGI-animated series Alvinnn!!! and the Chipmunks to Nickelodeon.

Produced by Bagdasarian Productions and Ouido! Productions, the series will debut on the network's international channels in early 2015 on more than 70 networks excluding those in North America and Brazil.

Created by Janice Karman, the series has been picked up for two seasons. ...

So maybe Nick doesn't want to do oodles of CG shows itself, but it still desires CG product.

0 comments:

Site Meter