• by Wayne Friedman , October 1, 2018

Viacom’s valuable Nickelodeon franchise has a new leader -- Paramount Pictures' executive Brian Robbins.

Robbins will now be president of Nickelodeon, reporting to Bob Bakish, president-CEO, Viacom.

He will manage creative and business operations at Nickelodeon, and will be responsible for boosting content from new and existing franchises, as well as “next-generation” platforms and “feature film.”

In June, Cyma Zarghami, longtime president of the Nickelodeon Group, resigned. From the end of September 2017 to September 2018, Nickelodeon pulled in $453.8 million in national advertising, according iSpot.tv.

Robbins -- who was president of Paramount Pictures’ Paramount Players, launched in June 2017 -- will remain involved in the development, production and marketing of all Nickelodeon cobranded films with Paramount Players, including “Dora the Explorer,” “Rugrats” and other current movies.

Before Paramount, Robbins was cofounder of media company Awesomeness.

Viacom bought Awesomeness in July of this year for an estimated $300 million, according to media analysts. Awesomeness, which started as a YouTube channel, had been a joint venture of NBCUniversal's DreamWorks Animation, Hearst and Verizon.

Robbins also cofounded the production company Tollins/Robbins Productions and was the founder/president of Varsity Pictures.

Paramount Players has begun a search for a new senior executive to replace Robbins.