Nick at Nite - History

History

Nick at Nite debuted at 8 p.m. ET on July 1, 1985 as a block on Nickelodeon. MTV Networks President Bob Pittman had asked Nickelodeon general manager Gerry Laybourne to develop programming to fill the time vacated by A&E (which occupied the former Alpha Repertory Television Service time slot) after it ceased to carry its programming over Nickelodeon's channel space to become its own 24-hour cable channel, to take better advantage of precious satellite time. After futile attempts at original program development, she asked programming and branding consultants Alan Goodman and Fred Seibert of Fred/Alan Inc. (successful as the original MTV branders, and Nickelodeon's explosive rebranding) to come up with programming.

After being presented with over 200 episodes of The Donna Reed Show (which Laybourne despised), Goodman and Seibert conceived the idea of the "first oldies TV network." They modeled the new evening and overnight programming block on the successful oldies radio format, "The Greatest Hits of All Time," and branded the block with their next evolution of MTV- and Nickelodeon-style imagery and bumpers. Head programmer Debby Beece led the team to the name "Nick at Nite," and Fred/Alan developed the original logo with Tom Corey and Scott Nash of Corey McPherson Nash, Boston, creators of the well-recognized Nickelodeon orange logo.

Its initial programming (running from 8 p.m.-6 a.m., seven days a week) was a block of classic sitcoms such as The Donna Reed Show and Dennis the Menace, and the classic drama Route 66. The initial lineup also included the "Nick at Nite Movie," which aired nightly and included such classic films as The Red House with Edward G. Robinson and A Star is Born with Janet Gaynor and Frederic March. As Nick at Nite grew, it would add to its library of shows branching out to rerun sketch comedy, such as original Saturday Night Live episodes as well as the Canadian series SCTV. It also briefly reran the 1970s mock local talk show Fernwood 2Night. As the years went by, the channel's sitcom library swelled to over a hundred shows. For the station's 20th birthday celebration in June 2005, TV Land aired an episode from almost every series that had appeared on Nick at Nite.

In 1995, Nick at Nite celebrated its 10th Anniversary with a week long event. Throughout the week, the channel aired "hand picked episodes" of almost every series aired on the network. Each episode was introduced with its history, episode number, and how long it ran on Nick at Nite. The 10th Anniversary on-screen bug was shown at the bottom left corner of the screen for 10 seconds once per half hour show, it was used for the entire year of 1995 as was the 20th Anniversary logo in 2005; nothing was done for the 25th Anniversary in 2010 however, as Nick at Nite did not make any acknowledgment of the 25th anniversary of its debut at all.

Nick at Nite has also spun off a niche network, TV Land, which features a variety of rerun programming. The networks were operated together until December 17, 2006, when Nickelodeon began overseeing Nick at Nite, and "Nick at Nite's TV Land" became "TV Land". On February 13, 2006, the Latin American version of Nickelodeon started broadcasting Nick at Nite for the first time. Since January 2007, the network has aired shows like ALF, Mork & Mindy, The Addams Family, The Munsters, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Growing Pains, The Facts of Life, Diff'rent Strokes, Get Smart, Perfect Strangers, and more, which have been broadcast in Latin American local networks and other cable channels. Although the Latin American Nickelodeon was born in the mid-1990s, it had never carried the Nick at Nite block before, currently, the Latin American version of Nick at Nite, has removed all of its classic shows and now only airs former or ended Nickelodeon series, both Nicktoons and live-action comedy series such as Zoey 101, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, True Jackson, VP, Hey Arnold!, Rocko's Modern Life, Rocket Power and more.

In March 2004, Nick at Nite and Nickelodeon were split up in the Nielsen primetime and total day ratings, due to the different programming, advertisers and target audiences between the two services; this caused controversy by executives of some cable channels believing this manipulated the ratings, given that Nick at Nite's broadcast day takes up only a fraction of Nickelodeon's programming schedule. Nickelodeon's and Nick at Nite's respective ratings periods encompasses only the hours they each operate under the total day rankings, though Nick at Nite is rated only for the primetime ratings; this is due to a ruling by Nielsen in July 2004, that networks have to program for 51% or more of a daypart to qualify for ratings for a particular daypart.

In 2007, the Nick at Nite logo changed the color from blue to orange thus creating a match with Nickelodeon's colors. On September 1, 2007, a new logo similar to the former Nickelodeon logo but with the Nick "splat" in the shape of a crescent moon, was introduced. This marked the first time that the Nickelodeon branding was used on Nick at Nite, as the logos used from its launch used variants of the Futura Condensed font (the former Nickelodeon logo used a Balloon font) with various shape backgrounds and a small circle with the word "at" (a circle background and the @ sign after 2002) lodged between the "I"'s in the logos staggering them. The first program ever aired on the relaunched Nick at Nite was America's Funniest Home Videos.

On July 5, 2009, Nick at Nite extended its programming hours to end at 7 a.m. seven days a week (the weekend lineup ended one hour earlier from April to June 2010 and from January to May 2011) and to begin at 8 p.m. ET on Sunday through Thursday nights and 9 p.m. ET on Friday nights (the Saturday lineup continues to have a 10 p.m. ET start time due to the presence of the long-running Saturday primetime comedy lineup on Nickelodeon). Nick at Nite's times of operation have changed several times over the years, to at one point (between 1998 and 2000) beginning as late as 9 p.m. ET on Sunday-Thursdays and ending as early as 5:30 a.m. ET.

The logo changed again on September 28, 2009 upon the launch of Nickelodeon's universal rebranding effort, with Nick at Nite stylized as "nick@nite" rendered as one word in lower case letters within the new network logo. The @ sign had been used in the Nick at Nite logo from 2002 to 2007 for visual symmetry, owing to the character's building ubiquity from the Internet and eventually into general pop culture. Nick at Nite also stopped using the show's production credits for most shows (except those that have tag scenes during the end credits) instead employing generic closing credits, bringing it in line with Nickelodeon which has been using generic credits since at least 2000; though it (and Nickelodeon) often omits some shows' end tag scenes or blooper reels using this format.