Nickelodeon News Round-Up - Issue 1
Below is a selection of articles from around the internet which feature news, commentary and information about Nickelodeon:
Nickelodeon UK and Ireland and Nickelodeon HD UK holds the exclusive on-air debut of the music video to Bin Weevils' brand new single, "The Big Bin Weevil Ball", on Wednesday 10th April 2013, immediately after "Fred 3: Camp Fred". The song is from Bin Weevils' upcoming album, 'Bin Tunes', which will be released on Monday 29th July 2013. More information about the Bin Weevils album can be found on www.binweevilsmusic.com. A new music video to accompany the single can be viewed here. Via Licensing.biz.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette profiles former smart Monkee Michael Nesmith, who played the guitar in the American-British pop group and television comedy series "The Monkees", who becoming a music-video pioneer when he created the Classic 1980's Nickelodeon music programme "PopClips", which was the direct predecessor to the popular music channel MTV. Via ABC Action News.
The American animation studio, Curious Pictures, rendered curious?ictures ("Nickelodeon Special Delivery", "The Off-Beats", "Team Umizoomi", "NFL Rush Zone: Guardians of the Core", and various commercials and other work for Nick, including "Friday Night Nicktoons", Nick At Nite, Noggin, and Nickelodeon Movies), invests in kids' app maker PlaySquare, a startup building "Touchable TV". Via TechCrunch.
The popular animated Nickelodeon shows "SpongeBob SquarePants", "The Penguins of Madagascar" and "Kung Fu: Legends of Awesomeness" deliver great TV ratings for the Spanish children's TV channel 'Clan'. Via Kidscreen.
Digital Spy looks back at a selection of American rapper, singer-songwriter, and actor Snoop Dogg's (also known as Snoop Lion and his real name Calvin Cordozar Broadus, Jr.) reinventions in the entertainment business, including:
The Nickelodeon popstarYou can read DS's full profile of Snoop Dogg here on DigitalSpy.co.uk.
Snoop emerged as the tweenagers' rapper after appearing on Nickelodeon series Big Time Rush ["Big Time Christmas"] in 2010. He also featured on the group's debut single 'Boyfriend', spitting child-friendly rhymes about lifting a girl off her feet "like a flight attendant".
Adweek's The Kids' Issue column takes a look at how world's leading construction toy manufacturer Lego became the most valuable toy company in the world with the help of a bucketload of license deals:
"Guys, please don't take pictures of that," said the publicist ushering journalists around Lego’s booth at this past February’s Toy Fair in New York. Indeed, several little configurations of plastic bricks were labeled "NO PHOTOS." That’s because the Toy Fair is always a magnet for camera-brandishing nerd bloggers, and some of the toys being shown there revealed entire scenes from upcoming movies and popular TV shows—among them, Man of Steel, The Lone Ranger and the new Ninja Turtles cartoon on Nickelodeon. The scolded photographer’s ears turned red, and he and his friends scattered.You can read Adweek's full profile of LEGO here on adweek.com.
"Does that happen a lot?" I asked.
"All the time," she sighed.
[...]
Lego got into the intellectual-property game late. The company has emphasized tradition and consistency over brand expansion and resisted creating licensed toys until 1999, at which point the game of slapping Batman on something to earn a cheap buck had become so common that there was a coffee-table book devoted to it. As Lucasfilm geared up for the release of The Phantom Menace, Lego began manufacturing toys based on the Star Wars franchise, which complemented its own spaceships and rockets. It also licensed a Winnie the Pooh line for its younger-targeted Duplo brand.
Lego built its library of licensed toys a few at a time, but that library is now composed solely of major names, many of them direct competitors known for negotiating hard over exclusivity. The company makes toys based on characters from both DC and Marvel comics, for example (which demand loyalty from Mattel and Hasbro, respectively), Nickelodeon and Disney, all under the same roof.
Essentially, brands have to prove to Lego that they're worth the time and effort the toy maker must commit, laying out not just a product’s appeal to kids but also its appeal across borders. "It has to have global clout, which is very different from other partners in the industry," explains Manuel Torres, svp of global toys for Nickelodeon. "[Others] will have a strategy for what they do domestically and another for what they do overseas. For Lego, you have to show that you have interest in Europe, that you have interest in the Americas—and then they’ll pursue a partnership.".
[...]
A federal judge in New York sided with YouTube, once again, in the long-running $1-billion copyright infringement suit brought by Viacom Inc. Via The Los Angeles Times.