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NickMom

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NickMom
See you there, without the kids.
NetworkNick Jr.
LaunchedOctober 1, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-10-01)
ClosedSeptember 28, 2015; 9 years ago (2015-09-28)
Division ofNickelodeon
Country of originUnited States
OwnerViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks
HeadquartersGlendale, California
Sister networkNickelodeon
TeenNick
Nicktoons
Running time4 hours

NickMom was a U.S. late evening programming block that was owned by ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks. It was aired on the channel space of the preschool-oriented cable channel Nick Jr.. The brand debuted online in November 2011, ahead of its television launch in October 2012. The block carried ad-supported comedy programming targeting an adult female demographic, particularly mothers, from 10:00 p.m ET nightly.

The launch of NickMom initially generated controversy; as Nick Jr. only operated a single feed out of the Eastern Time Zone, the usually child-oriented network would transition into content inappropriate for such audiences in the early evening or afternoon depending on time zones. On launch, viewership of the block was significantly lower than that of the children's programming it replaced, and other 24-hour preschool networks such as Disney Junior, Sprout, BabyFirstTV and BabyTV took advantage of the gap in programming to build their own audiences.

On September 28, 2015, NickMom ended its three-year run, and Nick Jr. once again became a 24-hour channel. The NickMom website was also shut down by Viacom and the domain now redirects to Nickelodeon's Parental Resources section of the Nick site.

History

Background

Prior to NickMom, the Nick Jr. channel from 2002-2007 (then known as Noggin) aired The N (now TeenNick, featuring content targeted at older audiences. The block aired from 6PM to 6AM. Eventually Noggin became a 24-hour channel once again when MTV Networks shut down Nick GAS on December 31, 2007, and replaced the channel's timeslot with a 24-hour version of The N.

Launch

In November 2011, Viacom announced that it would launch a new block on Nick Jr. for the 2012-13 television season known as NickMom, which would be aimed towards young mothers, as part of the company's "cradle-to-grave" strategy[1] where viewers grow into watching other Viacom networks (from Nick Jr. to Nickelodeon, then MTV, VH1 and then TV Land and formerly, CBS and Showtime[2]). The company explained that "today's moms who grew up with Nickelodeon have a renewed relationship with us through their kids", and that the new brand would "offer a destination that is unique in today's entertainment landscape with content that taps into Nickelodeon's comedic DNA". Unlike Nick Jr.'s main programming, which was commercial-free at the time, NickMom was to be commercially supported, having recently reached sponsorship deals with General Mills and Reckitt Benckiser. Over 30 projects were in development for the block at the time of the announcement.[3]

Closure

On September 9, 2015, the network's Twitter and Facebook accounts released a statement explaining that the NickMom programming block and website would cease operations by the end of September 2015 and by the beginning of October 2015 due to Viacom's 2015 cutbacks involving acquired programming and also due to the programming block's low ratings.[4][5]

NickMom ended its three-year run at 2 a.m. ET on September 28 after a showing of the movie Guarding Tess, three days shy to its third anniversary, without embellishment at its end. Shortly after, the network's website address was redirected to Nickelodeon's site for parental resources.

Programming

Main article: List of programs broadcast by Nick Jr. § NickMom

Original programming which launched with the block included Parental Discretion with Stefanie Wilder-Taylor, MFF: Mom Friends Forever, NickMom Night Out, and What Was Carol Brady Thinking?, featuring comedic commentary from Carol Brady within episodes of The Brady Bunch in the style of Pop-Up Video (Florence Henderson herself had no involvement in What Was Carol Brady Thinking?, with commentary penned by writers not involved with the original series).[6][7][8]

By June 2013, some of the programs and movies (Yours, Mine and Ours (2005), Imagine That, Nacho Libre, and The Spiderwick Chronicles) airing on the block had been replaced with syndicated shows already airing on Nick at Nite (or with their rights dormant on that channel), such as The New Adventures of Old Christine and Yes, Dear. Not including Instant Mom (whose second season aired on Nickelodeon and NickMom, but moved to TV Land for its third),[9] the majority of the block's original shows were canceled due to low ratings or creative differences.

In 2015, Movie feature presentations were added to the schedule, with family-friendly movies such as Babe and its sequel Pig in the City most prevalent, along with other female-focused titles such as Eat Pray Love. After acquiring its syndication rights, NickMom began airing the 2010 iteration of the NBC family drama, Parenthood, in April 2015 (rights for that show transferred to Up after NickMom's demise as a complement to Gilmore Girls being carried by that network recently and featuring Lauren Graham as a star in both series).

Controversy

The block launched with heavy controversy. As Nick Jr. operated on only one feed that broadcast on a default Eastern Time Zone schedule without a secondary feed for the Pacific Time Zone, NickMom programming started at 7 p.m. Pacific Time, and in time zones further west outside the continental United States, 6 p.m. in the Alaska Time Zone, and 5 p.m. in the Hawaii-Aleutian Time Zone (4 p.m. from mid-March to early November, as Hawaii does not observe DST). Many parents found the scheduling inappropriate, given the supposed sexual, coarse, and child-bashing humor, and uncensored light profanity of the network's launch schedule of programming. Parents also felt that the purpose and lure of the network with full-time preschool programming was nullified in the pursuit of increasing ratings with content not meant for children.[10][11] The inappropriate scheduling due to one feed was rectified in mid-February 2013, when VMN launched a second Pacific Time Zone-based feed for Nick Jr. which also applied to NickMom.[12]

The content of the block's website was also criticized early on for the same reasons, along with earlier allegations that the staff of the network's website took content from other websites, including pictures of children, without any attribution or credit, and without permission.[13][14]

Subsequently, Nielsen ratings for the NickMom block's first week plunged 75% from that same period the year prior when Nick Jr. and Noggin programs aired in the timeslot, with some shows registering a "scratch" as being unrated due to a low sample size.[15] Petitions were organized to encourage advertisers to pull their sponsorships from the block, with some online parenting community forum members demanding that children's programming return to the channel during that timeslot. Fisher Price and the General Mills brands Cheerios and Green Giant later pulled their advertising from the block by October 26, due to consumer reactions on social media.[16] General Mills returned to advertising during the NickMom block once some of the more controversial shows were canceled or replaced with Nick at Nite-sourced content.

A 2013 report from SNL Kagan and distributed by the Parents Television Council, which was opposed to the block, reported Nick Jr. as a network had a large loss of half their viewers in primetime, and of advertisers during the time the most racy of NickMom content was available before the addition of Nick at Nite content, along with a surge in the ratings of competitors Disney Junior and Sprout, which continued to air preschool-targeted programming in primetime. The report noted the ratings were among the lowest in primetime for cable networks. Although the report also listed that the network had a cash flow of -27%, Nick Jr. ran traditional advertising only during the NickMom block and sustained advertising for the rest of the broadcast day, and mainly was a loss leader as part of Nickelodeon's portion of the Viacom digital cable network suite; those networks usually make little money for the company and feature little to no advertising.[17]

References

  1. ^ Roberts, Johnnie (18 March 2001). "Cradle To Grave TV". Newsweek. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  2. ^ Lowry, Brian (29 September 2016). "Viacom-CBS reunion proposal seeks to fix Redstone's mistake - Sep. 29, 2016". CNN. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  3. ^ Weisman, Jon (2011-11-09). "Nick Jr. crafting mom-oriented content". Variety. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  4. ^ "Unlike your laundry pile, some things do come to an end. We're sad to say NickMom will be going off-air & offline at the end of the month". Tweet from network's Twitter account. 9 September 2015. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
  5. ^ "NickMom". Facebook. Retrieved 2019-12-23.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  6. ^ "Nick Jr. launches new comedy block for adults". EW.com. 2012-08-15. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  7. ^ "'NickMom' Block Lines Up a Slate". Multichannel News. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  8. ^ Grose, Jessica (2012-11-27). "MomTV". Slate. ISSN 1091-2339. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  9. ^ Andreeva, Nellie (2015-10-22). "'Instant Mom' To End Run After 3 Seasons As Nick at Nite Pauses Original Series". Deadline. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  10. ^ Hoffman, Sybil (15 October 2012). "Sexual comedy show airs on toddler network". AZfamily.com. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  11. ^ Brown, Stacia L.; Brown, Stacia L. (2015-09-10). "The TV shows mothers deserve". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 2017-08-29.
  12. ^ "Starting Thursday, Nick Jr will change from an east coast feed to a west coast feed so we are in line with the west coast programming schedules. If you DVR recordings on Nick Jr., you may need to delete and reset them up again". Facebook post. Comcast, Tucson, Arizona division. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
  13. ^ Nelson, Melanie (17 September 2012). "Protecting Your Blog Content: The NickMom Blog Controversy". Blogging Basics 101. Retrieved 28 October 2012.
  14. ^ "Hands Off Our Content". Resourceful Mommy. 12 September 2012. Retrieved 28 October 2012.
  15. ^ Jannarone, John (12 October 2012). "Mom Shows Hurt Nick Jr". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 16 October 2012.
  16. ^ Copple Smith, Erin (12 December 2012). "Nick Moms vs. NickMom". Antenna. Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin - Madison. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  17. ^ "Indecent "NickMom" Devastates Nick Jr. Network". Parents Television Council. October 10, 2013. Retrieved December 31, 2016.
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