The slimy downfall of Nickelodeon

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea…

If you can answer that question, Nickelodeon was a part of your childhood. The cable network revolutionized children’s media and has become engrained in the memories of Millennials and Gen Z. But for Gen Alpha, that may not be the case.

The channel is now a shell of what it used to be, to the point where viewership of new episodes of its flagship show, SpongeBob SquarePants, struggle to lure in 200,000 viewers. By contrast, new episodes of the show pulled in more than 4 million viewers in 2014, a decade prior.

Of course, there are the obvious culprits: streaming, social media, and cable cutters — but this decline exceeds that. As Gen Z ages, Nickelodeon has gone from the kids’ choice to a station with a slimy reputation.

Building the network

If you ventured back to the late 1970s and early 80s, when few people knew of Nickelodeon (or Pinwheel, its name for its first two years), you wouldn't recognize the channel. The focus was on educational programming: historically, that was a requirement for children’s television. But Nick was different because it was on cable.