Nickelodeon's new Nick.com live today (Graphic: Business Wire)
Additionally, Nickelodeon also announces in the same press release, below, the launch of Nick.com's first digital-only series, which kicks off today, Monday 4th August 2014, with the debut of "Welcome to the Wayne", developed and produced by Nickelodeon expressly for its digital platforms. Comprised of six 4-to-5-minute episodes that will be available each on Nick.com and the Nick App, the series follows the adventures of Olly Timbers and Ansi Molina, two ten-year-old boys exploring the crazy, unpredictable world of their New York City apartment building, The Wayne. Created by Emmy Award-winning writer and composer Billy Lopez ("The Wonder Pets", "Phineas and Ferb"), "Welcome to the Wayne" is also currently being developed for a TV series for Nickelodeon.
From left to right: Ansi Molina, Olly Timbers, Saraline Timbers, Leif Bornewell III in Nickelodeon's Welcome to the Wayne on the Nick.com and the Nick App. (Graphic: Business Wire)
"Welcome to the Wayne" is the first of four original digital-only series rolling out on Nick.com and the Nick App this year, with more in development. The other titles in Nickelodeon's original digital series slate include the previously announced live-action "Junior Eye", created by Will and Aaron Eisenberg; live-action "Chase Champion" (working title), created and directed by Michael Chaves and executive produced by Jeremy Slutskin; and the animated "Mr. Sheep's Department of Dreams", created by Alan Foreman.
Nickelodeon Launches New Nick.com with Unique Horizontal Layout, Edge-to-Edge Design, TV Everywhere and Slate of Original, Digital-Only Series
Nick.com's New Design Inspired by Net's Successful Mobile Nick App
Slate of Original Digital-Only Series Bows Today on Nick.com with Debut of Animated Welcome to the Wayne
August 04, 2014 11:26 AM Eastern Daylight Time
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nickelodeon today officially launched its newly redesigned Nick.com web site that takes its creative inspiration from the network’s Emmy Award-winning Nick App, which debuted last year and now has more than 10 million downloads. The new Nick.com leaves behind conventional long pages and vertical scroll in favor of a unique interface: an edge-to-edge landscape design that fills the screen as kids navigate the site horizontally. The new site will also host a slate of new original, short-form, digital-only series produced just for Nick.com and the Nick App, leading with the animated Welcome to the Wayne (http://www.nick.com/welcome-to-the-wayne/) debuting today.
Putting kids in control of their experience with the site, the new Nick.com lets them easily click or swipe as they wish across the site's content-heavy offering of games, videos, the famed Do Not Touch button, full-length TV series through TV Everywhere authentication and a slate of its own original animated and live-action series. The new design is initially launching for desktop and laptop computers, but will be fully responsive on tablet and smartphones by fall.
The new site offers a consistent, horizontal approach throughout the games, videos, and show sections, making it easy for kids to know how to use the site. The new design also puts the emphasis on content, with a simplified approach to layout and navigation. In addition, the new site offers an innovative app-like video viewing experience: video is played back using the full real estate of the site, and just like apps, the player controls and navigation fade away, and then reappear with a rollover or tap.
"The new Nick.com is the embodiment of Nickelodeon in the digital space, from its funny and irreverent attitude down to its almost endless content areas filled with unexpected surprises and the most popular shows and characters," said Matthew Evans, Senior Vice President, Digital, Nickelodeon. "While the new design is unique in the overall market, it's already a familiar winner with kids because it takes its creative cues directly from the innovation of the Nick App, including meeting kids' demand for new content with original digital-only series. We're using every pixel possible to deliver the best experience imaginable to our audience."
Nick.com's first digital-only series kicks off today, Monday, Aug. 4, with the debut of Welcome to the Wayne, developed and produced by Nickelodeon expressly for its digital platforms. Comprised of six 4-to-5-minute episodes that will be available each on Nick.com and the Nick App, the series follows the adventures of Olly Timbers and Ansi Molina, two ten-year-old boys exploring the crazy, unpredictable world of their New York City apartment building, The Wayne. Created by Emmy Award-winning writer and composer Billy Lopez (The Wonder Pets, Phineas and Ferb), Welcome to the Wayne is also currently being developed for a TV series for Nickelodeon.
Welcome to the Wayne is the first of four original digital-only series rolling out on Nick.com and the Nick App this year, with more in development. The other titles in Nickelodeon’s original digital series slate include the previously announced live-action Junior Eye, created by Will and Aaron Eisenberg; live-action Chase Champion (working title), created and directed by Michael Chaves and executive produced by Jeremy Slutskin; and the animated Mr. Sheep’s Department of Dreams, created by Alan Foreman.
Nick.com will offer access to more new episodes and series than ever before. To watch full-length episodes of Nick's hit TV shows on the new web site, including favorites like SpongeBob SquarePants, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Haunted Hathaways and The Thundermans, among others, users can authenticate through participating TV providers including AT&T U-verse, Bright House Networks, Cablevision, Cox DIRECTV, RCN, Suddenlink, Time Warner Cable and Verizon FiOS, which collectively reach more than 50 million homes.
Nickelodeon, now in its 35th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production in the United States and around the world, plus consumer products, digital, recreation, books and feature films. Nickelodeon's U.S. television network is seen in more than 100 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for 19 consecutive years. For more information or artwork, visit http://www.nickpress.com. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NASDAQ: VIA, VIA.B).
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Also, from The New York Times:
Nickelodeon's Digital Generation
"Welcome to The Wayne" will run on the web and mobile. Credit Nickelodeon
Meet Olly Timbers. Olly, an orange-haired 10-year-old boy, says he likes "rum raisin ice cream, going on adventures, getting scratched just behind his elbow and also other kinds of ice cream."
He's the star of "Welcome to The Wayne," Nickelodeon's first original animated series created exclusively for the web and mobile. Making its debut on a redesigned Nick.com site and on the Nickelodeon app on Monday, the series follows Olly's adventures with a friend in their wacky apartment building.
After its start online, "Welcome to The Wayne" will be developed into a traditional television series.
The program is part of an overhaul at Viacom's 36-year-old children's network to discover, develop and disseminate shows for a new generation of "Rugrats" who barely distinguish among a television set, a laptop, a tablet and a mobile phone.
Following their viewers' lead, Nickelodeon has started a number of initiatives that increasingly blur the lines among an ever-proliferating number of screens. "Welcome to The Wayne" is the first web-exclusive series produced by the network's new animated shorts program, which seeks to create a pipeline of fresh content for the web, mobile and, potentially, television. The network also is introducing a left-to-right scrolling Nick.com, featuring videos and games and designed for children to navigate the same way they swipe through mobile apps.
Nickelodeon hopes "Welcome to The Wayne" will match the popularity of Dora the Explorer, pictured, beloved by an earlier cohort of viewers. Credit Nickelodeon
"These kids were born into digital TV land," said Cyma Zarghami, president of Viacom Inc.'s Nickelodeon Group.
As they respond to the rapid change in viewing habits, Nickelodeon and other children's television networks are seeking the right balance of programming for traditional and digital screens. At Nickelodeon, that means creating more programming than ever before across six outlets: the Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., Nicktoons and Teen Nick television networks, and Nick.com and the Nick app. The network is also starting a new Nick Jr. mobile app. While the next generation of viewers is the most connected in history, children today still watch nearly three and a half hours of traditional television a day. With most of the advertising and distribution revenues still tied to that medium, network executives have to be careful not to ignore it.
But waiting too long to shake up their models could be ruinous for the television groups, especially as Amazon, Netflix and other online outlets pour resources into acquiring and developing their own original children's series.
"We're in the business of reinvention," Ms. Zarghami said.
The risks of inaction are all too real at Nickelodeon, where a ratings crisis rattled the network about three years ago.
Audience ratings plunged, as a generation of viewers outgrew Nickelodeon and loyal viewers left the network. Competition from other television and digital outlets exploded. While the network had a lineup of popular programs with "SpongeBob SquarePants," "iCarly," "Dora the Explorer" and "Dora and Friends: Into the City!," it needed new hits.
"We didn't see it coming, which is one of the scariest things that can happen," Ms. Zarghami said.
Some in the media business worried that the troubles at Nickelodeon were a warning sign that today's digitally wired children would never grow into traditional television watchers.
"There were a lot of people who legitimately believed that it was over for kids' television — Nick in particular and TV more broadly," said Brian Wieser, a media analyst with Pivotal Research. "But no good evidence suggests that there was a meaningful decline in total kids' consumption of television."
Despite the concerns, children today are watching more television on a traditional television set than they did five years ago. Children ages 2 to 11 now spend an average of 111 hours, 47 minutes a month watching traditional television, according to Nielsen's Cross-Platform Report for the first quarter of 2014.
"We're in the business of reinvention," said Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon Group. Credit Nancy Borowick for The New York Times
That is up from the average of 108 hours, 45 minutes a month children in that age group spent watching traditional television in 2009. "The bigger question to be asked was whether or not Nick is still able to produce new hits or whether they are broken," Mr. Wieser said.
After its ratings dropped, Nickelodeon overhauled its operations. The network researched the next generation of children, those born since 2005, who in addition to watching television grew up searching for funny cat videos on YouTube.
These youngsters love their families, want to save the world, are very well behaved, have few close friends but wide social circles and do not like bad language, meanness and bloody violence, the research showed, according to Ms. Zarghami. "Kids are looking for nuggets of funny," she said.
Nickelodeon is trying to figure out how to make them laugh. It started its animated shorts program with a focus on finding and grooming a new generation of creative talent to produce humorous content. Established creators act as mentors for the new talent, and the final products are developed to appear on the web, mobile and television. "Welcome to The Wayne" is one of the four digital-only series from the program being released this year, and more are in the works.
Just as "SpongeBob SquarePants," "iCarly" and "Dora the Explorer" defined Nickelodeon for a generation of children, network executives hope that this roster of digital characters will become as memorable to the next generation of viewers. "We are looking at new talent as diamonds in the rough, and we are polishing them up in this new system," said Russell Hicks, president of content development and production at Nickelodeon Group.
Nickelodeon also went to work on a new Nick.com, which had not been redesigned since the mid-1990s. The new site, unveiled last week, resembles a mobile app and features thousands of games and full-length television series for people with cable or satellite subscriptions. For the first time, it is offering digital-only series for all visitors, even those without a subscription. It also features the mobile app's famous Do Not Touch button, which children touch an average of 20 times a session to set off a silly animation, like a piece of pizza splatting against the computer screen.
"We have a stronger pipeline with more on deck for this new generation," Ms. Zarghami said.
It is unclear whether Nickelodeon's strategy is the right one. Its primary competitor, the Disney Channel, was first to introduce apps that streamed shows. But Disney Channel has taken a more cautious approach to overhauling its television offerings. While Nickelodeon has been experimenting with programs like "AwesomenessTV," a sketch comedy show stocked with YouTube personalities, the Disney Channel has remained focused on its signature brand of polished sitcoms.
Regardless, Nickelodeon still has its work cut out for it. Ratings are about flat this year, and traffic to Nickelodeon's desktop and mobile sites declined to 11 million unique United States visitors in June, down 30 percent from the same period last year, according to comScore.
And competition is increasing. Amazon, which carries Nickelodeon shows, is introducing three original children's series this summer on its Prime Instant Video service. Netflix, for its part, has announced plans for a lineup of original series for children.
"The competitive landscape is definitely bigger than it used to be," Ms. Zarghami said. "Now, more than before, the content really matters — not just how they get it."
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