What is Noggin? (Part 1)
N-O-G-G-I-N, Noggin!
This educational brand from Nickelodeon has existed in several different forms throughout its 22-year history. Though newer generations receive it as a mobile app meant to compliment Nick Jr., Noggin originated as a cable channel jointly owned by Nick and the Sesame Workshop, the latter of whom created Sesame Street.
The partnership was born out of prior attempts by the two companies to tackle educational content on cable. Sesame (back then known as the Children's Television Workshop) tried to launch New Kid City as an outlet for their offerings, whereas Nick (alongside other divisions of its parent company Viacom) began work on an interactive channel called the Big Orange.
Big Orange acted as Noggin's core foundation, as the proposed channel was re-tooled into a syndicated program and expanded franchise that amounted to "the educational version of Nickelodeon." Nick and the CTW eventually came together in 1998 to bring Noggin to life as a "kids' thinking channel," a promise they fulfilled on February 2, 1999.
Upon its launch, Noggin's schedule consisted of three primary blocks that directly mirrored Nickelodeon; preschool in the morning, 6 to 12-year-olds in the afternoon, and families/adults at night. Programming mixed Nick series (like Allegra's Window, Blue's Clues, Doug, Gullah Gullah Island, and Nick News) with older CTW series, many of which aired on PBS (like 3-2-1 Contact, Cro, Ghostwriter, Square One TV, and Sesame Street).
June 6, 1999 marked the premiere of Noggin's first original series - the Phred on Your Head Show. This variety show, starring an animated pickle called (you guessed it) Phred, heavily built itself around the Noggin website, culminating in a spin-off program known as The URL with Phred Show.
Noggin's original content grew steadily from this point on. 2000 brought what was arguably the brand's flagship and most distinct series: Oobi. Created by Sesame Street alum Josh Selig, Oobi was a traditional program about "family life," but with a catch – all of the characters are bare-handed puppets. Other Noggin original series included the game show Sponk!, the Wife Swap-style A Walk in Your Shoes, and the comedy Big Kids (which was co-produced with the UK's CBBC).
By 2002, the Noggin channel had amassed around 16 million cable subscribers, but things were really starting to shift behind the scenes. A year prior, the Jim Henson Company - which held a minor stake in Noggin from its inception - sold the rights to the Sesame Street muppets to Sesame Workshop, as well as its share in the channel.
Noggin's programming also started to take several blows. A primetime block known as the Hubbub, which utilized submissions from the Noggin website, failed to bring in ratings that executives wanted. It was clear to executives that Noggin needed to succeed by focusing and building upon a stable audience.
The resulting plan, unveiled in March 2002, would change the course of Nickelodeon and cable TV history...
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 2!
