Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick, and originally called Pinwheel) is an American basic cable and satellite television network that is owned by Paramount Media Networks, a division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS).
The channel began life as a test broadcast on December 1, 1977 as part of QUBE, an early cable television system broadcast locally in Columbus, Ohio. The channel, now named Nickelodeon, launched to a new countrywide audience on April 1, 1979, with Pinwheel as its inaugural program. The network was initially commercial-free and remained without advertising until 1984.
Most of its programming is aimed at children and adolescents ages 8–16, while its weekday morning edutainment programs are targeted at younger children ages 2–8. The channel's programming consists of original first-run television series, along with occasional broadcasts of theatrically-released and original made-for-cable movies and select other third-party programming. Its programming runs from Sunday-Wednesdays from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. (Eastern and Pacific Time).
Since July 1985, it has shared its channel space with Nick at Nite, a nighttime service that airs during the interim hours, and is treated as a separate channel from Nickelodeon by Nielsen for ratings purposes; it features reruns of older primetime sitcoms, along with some original series and feature films. Both services are sometimes collectively referred to as "Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite", due to their common association as two individual channels sharing a single channel space.
Throughout history, Nickelodeon has introduced several sister channels and programming blocks. Nick Jr. is a preschool morning block launched on January 4, 1988. Nicktoons, based on the flagship brand, launched as a separate sister channel in 2002. In 1999, Nickelodeon partnered with Sesame Workshop to create Noggin, an educational brand consisting of a cable channel and an interactive website. Two blocks aimed at a teenage audience, TEENick (previously on Nickelodeon) and The N (previously on Noggin), were merged into a standalone channel, TeenNick, in 2009.
As of September 2018, the channel is available to about 87.167 million households in the United States.
Launching Monster High reboot[]
In 2021, Mattel announced the return of the Monster High brand, promising new content and products in 2022. Mattel Television announced a new animated series and a live-action movie based on the franchise. Both projects would air on Nickelodeon in the United States on October 6, 2022.
On October 6, 2022, after the debut of "Monster High: The Movie," a sneak peak of the episodes: "Food Fight" and "Unfinished Brain-ness" aired on Nickelodeon.