Nickelodeon, after a long partnership with Foxtel, has moved in-house within Paramount ANZ’s content portfolio across a free-to-air channel, BVOD service 10 Play and SVOD platform Paramount+.
Beverley McGarvey, EVP, CCO and head of Paramount+ at Paramount ANZ, said the broadcaster has opted to reduce the ad load on the Nickelodeon channel, which was rebranded from multichannel 10 Shake to offer a free, dedicated suite of Nickelodeon content for the first time on free-to-air linear television in Australia.
“Kids are not super great at watching long ad breaks, so we have reduced the ad load, which has improved the viewing experience for our younger audiences,” she said.
“Because the ad load is limited, that scarcity makes it really valuable and although kids don't have money, they do have ‘pester power’.”
That ‘pester power’ was highlighted in a ‘Kidfluence’ study by Paramount Global Insights in 2021, which found that 75% of parents of kids 6-12 agree that they influence household purchase decisions, with 'kidfluence' over purchasing decisions climbing to 90% for key categories, like entertainment, travel and food and groceries.
The research also found that Australian kids have a personal spending power of $2.59 billion dollars, and have the most personal spending power of any country measured by Paramount, including the U.S and UK.
McGarvey said that a lot of clients in the market want a responsible place where they can engage younger viewers in a responsible fashion, with certain categories working “really well” for kids.
“Nickelodeon sits across the market in a number of different places - it's on the FAST channels on 10 Play, it obviously also sits on the free to air space, plus there's the exclusive first-run content and all the deep library sets on Paramount Plus, so from a client point of view, you can access that in several places,” McGarvey told AdNews.
“The response has been great and I think it will continue to improve. We have a mini-Upfront for consortiums and clients in a few weeks and we'll have an opportunity to really speak to the market in this last few months of 2023 about a 12 month opportunity next year.”
She said that Paramount rebranded all of the 10 multichannels a few years ago to become 10 Bold, 10 Peach and adding 10 Shake when the merger happened between what was then CBS and Viacom before the companies came together under what is now the Paramount umbrella.
McGarvey (pictured right) said at that point, the Nickelodeon brand was unavailable in the free-to-air market because of the relationship with Foxtel, but because Nickelodeon is such a strong brand, Paramount felt that rebranding 10 Shake to Nickelodeon and moving that content in-house was a “really good way” for people to understand what was on the channel.
“The great Nickelodeon content has always been there, but it makes it easier to find and more accessible and it's more discoverable with the Nickelodeon brand there,” she said
“Globally, we talk about how we utilise our content on multiple platforms and having that Nickelodeon content in front of the paywall for all Australians just felt like something that was really competitive.
“There's no other commercial free-to-air kids product in the market and we have arguably the best kids brand in the world.”
Already, Paramount have seen success with the rebrand – audience numbers are up 14% in prime time, 38% in daytime and the channel has become the number one commercial multi-channel in kids 0-12 in daytime viewing.
McGarvey said although overall the portfolio between the two channels is relatively similar, there are new shows that weren’t on 10 Shake before, so it's an enhanced product offering.
“With the strength of the brand, you can set your kids in front of Nickelodeon and you know what you're going to get - you know it's a brand safe place and you're not worried that they're on a social media channel doing something they shouldn't be doing,” she said.
“10 Shake was a relatively new brand, so from a parent's point of view, we had already positioned it as kid’s channel, but nothing feels as safe as a brand like Nickelodeon.
“The brand safety for parents but also the love that kids have for the Nickelodeon brand; I think those two things helped us improve the discoverability of the content that was already on there and now it's sitting in front of the paywall, so it's available for everyone - they just have to tune in.”
Jules Borkent, MD and EVP of international kids & family brands at Paramount Global, said that 10 Shake was a great platform that laid the groundwork for the free to air content in the market and set up the opportunity to rebrand the channel to Nickelodeon.
“We have now gone to the FAST channels as well and stayed in that free to air space to really make the content as widely available as possible while also keeping exclusivity for our streaming services, which we see with something like the Paw Patrol movie next year, which after its theatrical release, is coming to Paramount Plus in Australia,” he told AdNews.
“There's still going to be a lot of exclusive shows as well for our streaming platform, which eventually will all transition through our ecosystem back to free to air, so it's really managing that pipeline across all these platforms.”
Borkent (pictured right) said that the broadcaster has seen a “big uptick” in preschool and animation viewing.
“We also rebranded the evening hours into Nick at Nite, which is more family viewing, because what we learned through the pandemic is co-viewing is becoming more and more important,” he said.
“We are right now focusing very heavily on movies, comedy and also bringing some of the retro animation back from a long time ago - like The Ren & Stimpy Show, CatDog and The Angry Beavers – that were in Australia many years ago to really make it a 24 hour service.
“It's only two months in, but it looks incredibly promising and with plans for 2024 and new content coming to market globally but also to Australia, it's only going to get better.”
Looking ahead to that 2024 content, Borkent said the return of Dora the Explorer will be one of the marquees, launching worldwide in April next year.
“And 25 years ago, we launched a show called Spongebob, which was a little show that has become very big since so we are doing a big celebration next year," he told AdNews.
"The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem movie has done really well after being recently released and there’s a TV series, which is a tie-in to the movie, coming next winter to Australia.
"While we have a lot of our beloved franchises coming back, we're also bringing new IP to the market. We’re doing a second season of our Australian show Rock Island Mysteries, which is a show we are doing with Fremantle in Australia. The second season had its world premiere a week ago on Nickelodeon in Australia, and then it's going to roll out across all networks around the world."
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