Nick Jr.

Nick Jr. (formerly Noggin) is an American pay television channel that is run by the Nickelodeon Group, a unit of the ViacomCBS Domestic Media Networks division of ViacomCBS, the channel's ultimate owner headquartered in New York City. The channel, which is aimed at children under 6, features a mix of originally-produced programming, and series previously and concurrently aired on the Nick Jr. block and its previous iterations. Some of Nick Jr.'s programming includes series such as Corn & Peg, PAW Patrol, Bubble Guppies, Blaze and the Monster Machines, Shimmer and Shine, and Dora and Friends: Into the City!. Due to the Nickelodeon block, Nick Jr. is sometimes disclaimed on air as "the Nick Jr. channel" to avoid confusion, especially at times of day when both Nickelodeon and Nick Jr. are carrying preschool programming.

The channel was originally known under the Noggin brand from February 2, 1999 until September 28, 2009. Its sister channel The N was relaunched as TeenNick at the same time and date as Noggin's relaunch as Nick Jr. As with TeenNick, Nick Jr.'s name was taken from a former program block on parent channel Nickelodeon, which aired weekday mornings from 1988 to 2009 under the Nick Jr. name, and still survives today on Nickelodeon as a block with the same name as of 2014 (which currently airs weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET/PT. Those hours may vary during the summer months, other school break periods and on major national holidays), having traditional commercial breaks for certain programs. As of January 2016, Nick Jr. is available to approximately 73.0 million pay television households in the United States.

Pre-history (1995–1998)
In 1995, Children's Television Workshop (now known as Sesame Workshop) began planning its own educational subscription channel as a new home for most of its programming (other than Sesame Street) such as Cro (which had aired on ABC with excellent ratings, but was cancelled after 2 seasons). The channel was to be called "New Kid City" (entitled for CTW's Kid City children's magazine of the time) and was planned to be CTW's "own niche on the dial with shows that emphasize educational content"; but CTW later abandoned the concept.

Meanwhile, Nickelodeon began planning an early interactive educational channel called "Big Orange"; in addition to Nickelodeon, other Viacom divisions (such as Viacom Interactive) were involved with the project. By 1997, Viacom retooled the project into an attempt at a package of educational programming to by syndicated to the major broadcast networks to fulfill the FCC's stricter new requirements for educational programming, and the project was renamed "Noggin". A pilot was also developed for the project that was based on a Nickelodeon series of shorts called "Inside Eddie Johnson".

In addition to being a syndicated package of educational programming, another vision was that Noggin could also evolve into a pay channel that would focus on educational content, complementing entertainment-oriented Nickelodeon. For various reasons, Noggin would ultimately not launch as a syndication package, though CTW and Nickelodeon would form a partnership in 1998 for the pay channel concept, and Noggin was announced soon after as a joint venture between Nickelodeon and CTW with the goal of "[positioning] educational children's programs at the forefront of the digital cable movement".

Original Noggin (1999–2002)
On February 2, 1999, the new channel launched at 6:00 a.m., with the original pilot episode of Sesame Street from 1969. It was then followed by the first few episodes of The Electric Company, which had not been televised since 1971. At the time Noggin launched, only satellite provider Dish Network carried the channel.

The network's name was derived from a slang term for "head" and, by extension, had reflected its original purpose as an educational channel. Noggin's programming was originally targeted primarily at pre-teens from 1999 to 2002, although a few programs airing on the channel were aimed at preschoolers. This had the unintended consequence of creating a redundant audience with parent network Nickelodeon, which also primarily targets a pre-teen audience, despite Noggin's programming being more educational in nature than the entertainment-based Nickelodeon. The channel's first official mascot was Phred, a strange pickle character, who was seen on the channel from 1999 to 2002.

Programs that aired on Noggin during this period of Noggin's history included (among others) Phred on Your Head Show, A Walk In Your Shoes, Sponk!, and Bill Nye the Science Guy.

Feetface era (2002–2003)
On April 1, 2002, due to low ratings, the format of Noggin was changed to reflect the network's programming strengths, shifting its target audience to preschoolers full-time and outside of Sesame Street, moving archived CTW/Sesame Workshop programming to the graveyard hours until their eventual removal on May 26, 2003. That same day, Noggin debuted a new mascot named Feetface (played by Ashleigh Ball), who makes games out of the show(s) coming up next in several interstitials, and has the ability to sprout feet. During the sign-on and sign-off bumpers, a song titled "Things You Can Do" sung by Feetface will be played that talks about different things a kid can do. Acknowledging at the time that there was low demand for nighttime preschool programming, Viacom launched The N in the evening/early morning half of the network's broadcast day. It targeted an older audience and carried programming that had more appeal to young teenagers than Noggin or Nickelodeon's show.

Similarly to the shared-time format of Nickelodeon (which had shared channel space with other channels throughout its early history including The Movie Channel, the Alpha Repertory Television Service (also known as ARTS), and ARTS' successor A&E) and Nick at Nite, Noggin and The N aired their respective programming over the same channel space and in a block format: Noggin ran from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. ET, while The N ran from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. ET seven nights a week. This was acknowledged in Noggin's daily sign-off message, which explained that Noggin would resume its programming at 6:00 a.m. ET the next morning. Later in 2002, Sesame Workshop sold its stake in Noggin to Viacom, giving them full control of the channel.

Noggin was a commercial-free service, but it showed interstitials between shows such as episodes of the short series Oobi and And Then What Happened?, as well as other "tie-in" media such as music videos that tied in with promotions for programs on the other Nickelodeon channels. At the time, the channel's revenue came primarily from carriage fees paid by cable television providers. The Feetface interstitials on Noggin ended their one-year run on April 6, 2003.

Moose and Zee era (2003–2012)
In February 2003, a preview for Moose and Zee began airing, in which Feetface encounters Moose and Zee and asks the duo to take over before announcing his departure from the network. On April 7, 2003, Noggin fully introduced Moose A. Moose and Zee D. Bird. Besides airing classic Nickelodeon preschool series such as Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer, and original shows such as Oobi and Jack's Big Music Show, Noggin also aired many preschool-oriented shows originating from English-speaking countries outside of the United States (including Nelvana’s Canadian series Little Bear and Franklin and British series Tiny Planets).

The channel also served as the launching pad for music videos by children's music artists such as Laurie Berkner, Lisa Loeb, and Dan Zanes, usually shown as filler between 23-minute-long shows that ran commercial-free. The channel continued to carry classic Sesame Workshop series until September 12, 2005, when Jack's Big Music Show premiered on the channel. Around this time, Noggin began to air versions of classic shows from the Sesame Workshop library (such as The Electric Company), that were edited for running time.

In 2006, Noggin began to decrease its reliance on foreign children's programs; Tweenies was removed from the schedule in January, with Tiny Planets being dropped that April. Tiny Planets was previously shown intermittently (i.e. not on a daily basis, at 6:00 a.m. ET, as Tweenies was for a year until it was removed. The channel, however, later acquired the Australian series The Upside Down Show (which, like Tiny Planets, has American origins through Sesame Workshop). On April 2, 2007, Noggin was renamed as Nick's Noggin, carrying Nick Jr. programs.

First return as a full 24/7 service (2007–2012)
On August 13, 2007, Nickelodeon announced that it would shut down sister channel Nick GAS on December 31, 2007, turning it into an online-only service on TurboNick, with The N becoming its own 24-hour channel that would take over Nick GAS's channel space. Noggin's time-sharing service ended its 5-year run on December 30, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. ET, with the Little Bear episode "A Family Portrait / Little Bear's New Friend / Emily's Visit" as its last program to air. The final sign on was a sudden cut-in to a curriculum board for the American/French series 64 Zoo Lane replacing the song. The change was likely made in reaction to new services such as BabyFirst preschool programming 24/7, and reactive to the possibility of Disney creating a 24/7 network for their Playhouse Disney strand, which eventually came true in 2012 with the launch of Disney Junior.

Due to unknown complications, Dish Network continued to carry a constant loop of Nick GAS programming on its usual channel slot, with Noggin continuing to timeshare with The N on the satellite provider until April 23, 2009, when Dish replaced Nick GAS with the Pacific Time Zone feed of Turner Broadcasting System's channel Cartoon Network (that network had a programming block called Tickle-U that aired preschool programming from 2005–2007); Dish Network began to carry The N and Noggin as separate channels on May 6, 2009.

Relaunch as Nick Jr. (2009–present)
On February 24, 2009, Nickelodeon announced that Noggin and The N were to be rebranded as Nick Jr. and TeenNick respectively to bring both channels in line with the Nickelodeon brand identity. In July of that year, Nickelodeon unveiled new standardized logos for its five channels, intending to create a unified look that could better be conveyed across the services.

Noggin ended its 10-year run on September 28, 2009 at 6:00 a.m. ET and was rebranded as Nick Jr., accompanied by the debut of the new logo (which was designed by New York City-based creative director/designer Eric Zim). Although the use of an orange "adult" and blue "child" figure was discontinued in the new wordmark logo, the tradition of the "Nick" text being orange (representing the adult) and the "Jr." text remaining in blue (as the child) was retained. As is common with newer networks which have taken another former network's channel slot, some subscription providers have confusingly continued to display the channel's logos as either Noggin, The N, or both as that of Nick Jr.'s current logo on electronic program guides. The Nick Jr. channel retained Noggin's mascots Moose A. Moose and Zee D. Bird. It also continued not to accept traditional advertising or marginalize closing credits for promotion of other shows on the channel.

A Spanish language block featuring Nick Jr. and Nickelodeon programs debuted on July 12, 2010 on sister channel Tr3́s. "Tr3́s Jr." aired Spanish dubs of Blue's Clues and Wonder Pets!. The block was ended once the final affiliations for Tr3́s broadcast stations requiring E/I programming expired.

Without warning the viewers on March 1, 2012, an update of Nick Jr.'s image debuted that was produced by Gretel Inc. The Moose and Zee interstitials were completely dropped after nine years, removing one of the last vestiges of the channel's former Noggin identity; as a result, some of the interstitial learning activities that originally featured Moose's narration (like the Puzzle Time segments) were recycled and replaced by the voice of a female continuity announcer. Disappointed parents organized a social media effort to bring back the Moose and Zee characters. The channel changed its slogan from "It's Like Preschool On TV" to "The Smart Place To Play" (which was also used as the branding for the Nick Jr. block). In addition, The Upside Down Show, Oswald, Jack's Big Music Show, Franklin, Toot & Puddle, and Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends were pulled from the network's lineup; the latter five would return later that year.

The channel's programming at this point began to be hosted by characters from Nick Jr. shows. The channel also began incorporating programming promotions and short features on that date; seven months later, on October 1, 2012, Nick Jr. started airing limited traditional advertising (for companies such as ABCMouse, Kmart, and Playskool) in the form of underwriter sponsorships airing in-between shows, whereas its parent network airs longer traditional advertising.

In mid-February 2013, a second Pacific Time Zone-based feed for Nick Jr. was launched, both to allow a unified schedule across nearly all time zones and the reaction of parents to NickMom's scheduling a few months before which meant programming for a mature audience aired in the early evening west of the Rockies.

Return of Noggin as an app (2015–present)
On February 25, 2015, Nickelodeon announced the return of the Noggin brand and the Moose and Zee characters, this time as the name and mascots for a new video streaming service that launched on March 5, 2015 as an iOS mobile app under the Noggin branding. The app requires a monthly subscription fee and offers access to selected episodes or full seasons from the Noggin archive of several cancelled or rarely aired Nick Jr. shows including Gullah Gullah Island, The Upside Down Show, and Oswald. Robot and Monster and the original series of Teletubbies are also on the app, even though they were never part of the Noggin lineup (in fact, the former was always targeted towards an adolescent audience, and the latter was screened on PBS (USA)/BBC (UK) and not Nickelodeon), along with the mentioned new Moose and Zee clips and continuity bumpers. The most popular shows on the app are Blaze and the Monster Machines and PAW Patrol.

Nick Jr.'s mobile app continues to exist separately with TV Everywhere requirements, which the Noggin subscription service does not require. No on-air changes have occurred on the linear Nick Jr. channel outside of promotions for the Noggin app and subscription service. The website was also revived to be an informational guide to the app.

Second return as a full 24/7 service (2015–present)
On September 9, 2015, the social media channels of NickMom announced that the four-hour weeknight block on Nick Jr., along with the NickMom website, would end operations by the end of September 2015 due to Viacom's 2015 cutbacks involving acquired programming and also due to NickMom's low ratings with the time vacated by NickMom returned to traditional Nick Jr. programming. In the early morning of September 28, NickMom ended its 3-year run at 2am ET, with an airing of the film Guarding Tess. No sign off message was shown; after the film Guarding Tess, it faded straight into an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba! at its end. Since then, some of Nick Jr.'s most popular programming, including repeats of Dora the Explorer, Blue's Clues, Team Umizoomi, and Bubble Guppies now fill the four hours vacated by NickMom, whose former website address is now used as a redirect to Nickelodeon's site for parental resources.

Following NickMom's closure, Nick Jr. increased the amount of traditional advertising it aired, but also began scheduling programs in an inversion of the "off-the-clock" format where the network shortened some of its commercial breaks, allowing the network to air more programming. The "off-the-clock" format was previously adopted by various Viacom networks, such as TV Land, Nick at Nite, MTV, MTV2, and Paramount Network (though in a reversed form, the scheduling format for those channels was designed to add extra advertising loads).

In December 2017, Nickelodeon made a deal with Mattel Creations to move the British show Thomas & Friends to Nick Jr. from its longtime U.S. TV home of PBS Kids starting in 2018.

Additional Nick Jr. Channel notation
On May 21, 2018, the network refreshed their imaging with new interstitial pieces and updated curriculum notices, and began to promote themselves as the "Nick Jr. Channel" audibly and visually to avert confusion with the Nickelodeon block.