• by Ken Liebeskind , March 13, 2002

Nickelodeon's upfront breakfast, held yesterday in New York, could have been televised on the network, with an original music comedy show featuring a few talented kids (and Nickelodeon executives) stealing the show.

But the show was devoted to a media buying audience, with relevant song lyrics: "Do you ever wonder why SLAM is gonna fly, with ratings super high."

SLAM is a new block of programs that will launch this fall, one of the programming innovations announced at yesterday's upfront event. The network describes SLAM as "high tech live and animated action," featuring Robot Wars, an action series from Mentorn Entertainment, Butt-Ugly Martians, an animated action series from Just Entertainment and Mike Young Productions, and Invader Zim, a sci-fi adventure from comic book writer Jhonen Vasquez.

SLAM will run Sunday afternoons from 4 to 6 pm. The key point for advertisers is that it appeals to boys. "The block will help us for boys with action comedy," says Susan Danaher, Nick's executive vice president/general sales manager. Boys programming is attractive to specific advertisers, including toys, video games and movies, she says.

Nick's second big move is to increase its Saturday morning lineup on CBS. Of course, Nick runs its own programs on Saturday mornings, but airs another slate on CBS in an effort to take advantage of a network audience. Both companies are owned by Viacom. Nick has been running three hours of programming on CBS on Saturdays for the past two seasons, but will increase it to five, from 7 am to noon. The first two hours will be Nick Jr. programs for preschoolers, followed by three hours geared to a slightly older audience. Nick favorites such as Hey Arnold!, The Wild Thornberrys, As Told by Ginger and Pelswick will be featured, along with Nick Jr. shows Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer.

"We see an opportunity in delivering the audience very effectively because of the lack of competition," Danaher says. "Networks haven't been competing as strongly on Saturday mornings, so we'll do well by aging up."

Nick also announced five new animated series for the fall, including a Rugrats spin off, Angelica and Susie's School Daze and The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. The other new shows are Danny Phantom, My Neighbor is a Teenage Robot and Max and Ruby, a Nick Jr. show. The new shows run from six to 20 episodes.

Danaher says Nick did well in Q1 and Q2, calling it "a harbinger of the upfront in terms of the health of the market. Kids business has been healthy and we feel good about the prospects for moving forward." Nick's viewership has grown, with 1.677 million viewers a day through March 10 of this year, according to Nielsen. This compares with 1.604 million for 2001 and 1.548 million for 2000.

The network generated $846,027,780 in advertising revenue last year, according to CMR. Danaher says lots of it is integrated deals, with TV ads part of packages for Ford Motor Co. and other large advertisers that also include online, magazine, licensed goods and other properties.