Nickelodeon

Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children.^[1] It is owned by Paramount Global through Nickelodeon Group. The channel is primarily aimed at children and adolescents aged 2 to 17,^[2] along with a broader family audience through its program blocks.

The channel began life as a test broadcast on December 1, 1977,^[3] as part of QUBE,^[4] an early cable television system broadcast locally in Columbus, Ohio.^[5] The channel, now named Nickelodeon, launched to a new nationwide audience on April 1, 1979,^[6] with Pinwheel as its inaugural program.^[5] The network was initially commercial-free and remained without advertising until 1984.^[7][8]

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.