• by Paul Gough , March 16, 2004

With more than a third of all kids gross ratings points in hand, Nickelodeon celebrated 25 years with a lively upfront presentation Tuesday morning that highlighted nine new shows and a retooled lineup to appeal to tweens. The presentation marked another key step in the kids TV upfront sales season.

Next season, Nickelodeon will reach for a little star power: New shows featuring Jamie Spears, kid sister of singer Britney Spears, and Emma Roberts, 12-year-old niece of movie star Julia Roberts, as well as a half-hour "dramedy" about a girl's soccer team that is executive produced by Whoopi Goldberg. They'll also unveil spinoffs from two well-known Nick Jr. characters, Dora the Explorer and Blue from Blue's Clues, starring Dora's eight-year-old cousin Diego and "Blue's Room," five specials that bring Blue to life as a puppet and allow him to talk for the first time. A new show, "Avatar," will combine anime with Nickelodeon's strengths.

It's the most new shows Nickelodeon has ever debuted in a season, said Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon Television. Add to that 60 hours of original programming for returning favorites such as "The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius," "The Fairly OddParents," and "Romeo!"

"One of the things that we're most excited about this year is the amount of energy that we feel that the brand has with the audience at the moment," Zarghami said Tuesday afternoon. "What we're most excited about moving into the second quarter is the momentum we're feeling with the audience."

That showed through with Tuesday's upfront presentation, held at the Roseland club in midtown Manhattan, which was led off by a "poetry slam" of well-spoken tweens and teens and well-heeled Nick executives. The teens focused not on overt commercial messages, but rather rhymes on what their lives are like. But the ad execs couldn't resist digging into the competition.

And following up on a "Romeo and Juliet"-style takeout from last year's upfront, ad sales VP Jim Tricarico, dressed in Elizabethan garb, offered "Ode to the Media Client" to Ivelisse Roche, associate director of media implementation at Kraft Foods.

"Please don't freak out if CPMs go higher," Tricarico told her. Roche acknowledged the praise, but added: "Start by rolling back the CPMs."

The upfront was capped by a three-song set by Nickelodeon alum Alanis Morissette, who appeared in "You Can't Do That on Television" in 1985.

In the middle of her set, Morissette told the crowd of media people that she had fond memories of her days at Nickelodeon.

"I cut my hair especially for this, just so I would look the same as I did when I was 11," she said.