Post contributed by Nick Spooner -


It is no secret that advertisers have often sought out children to be their market demographic. Children are so valuable because they are easily influenced and provide a loyal following for their whole life.
  A recent Wall Street Journal article mentioned the fact that Nickelodeon has been struggling recently with viewership. But this has started to change. Viewership has increased 1.7% since last year. So Nickelodeon would think that advertising for their shows would increase with their ratings.
  This has not been the case. Reported Nielsen ratings have been falling, and its unclear whether audiences are remaining with long-time running shows like SpongeBob SquarePants or moving to newer shows like Kung Fu Panda. Also, Nielsen's ratings have seen a change in children's viewership. Kids are less likely to watch TV during the day now and are also watching more nonkids networks.  {On the other hand, there have been reports of serious problems with the last few sets of Nielsen ratings - BJB).
  Nickelodeon has begun to change because their viewership has dropped 19% from a year earlier. They plan on releasing over 500 new episodes next year in hopes that kids between the age of 2 to 11 will come back. More "reality-based" channels like upstart network, The Hub, which is owned by Hasbro and Discovery have seen a 50% increase in viewership. This people wonder whether kids have started to change from the Saturday morning cartoons to the Saturday morning History Channel program. This might lead kids to become smarter but evidence of that has not been proven yet.
  Where the ratings are high, the money follows. This provides a challenge for these kid friendly networks on how they plan on keeping their loyal fan base.

Source -  TV Draws More Pre-Teens, WSJ.com

Comment - Don't worry too much about Nickelodeon,  A recent Kagan report found that Nickelodeon had the highest cash flow margin of any leading cable network (near 65%) - BJB