Nick Lines Up New Animation, Scripted Series Featuring UGC

NEW YORK, March 8: Nickelodeon will add three new animated series to its 2008 schedule—The Umizumiz, Bubble Guppies and Making Fiends—and has unveiled iCarly, a new live-action comedy series that will incorporate user-generated content.

Nickelodeon has green-lit 13 episodes of iCarly, with production to begin in late March for launch in September. It features a lead character named Carly, played by Miranda Cosgrove (Drake & Josh), who hosts her own homegrown web show. The show converges the television screen and the web for kids. During the course of the series, Carly will give viewers a specific assignment that relates to the context of a particular show. Kids are directed to a website to post their own original content, which may be either scripted into a future iCarly episode or become part of Carly’s webcast online.

iCarly joins the numerous convergent entertainment experiences launched by Nickelodeon over the past few months, including Nickelodeon’s ME:TV, the first-ever live TV programming block featuring original kid-generated content; Nicktropolis, Nickelodeon’s kid-targeted virtual world; and TurboNick 2.0, Nick’s broadband video platform which gives kids the opportunity to control their individual entertainment.

"Hit-maker Dan Schneider has created a cutting edge TV show that integrates the web with the tube in a totally unique way," commented Marjorie Cohn, the EVP of development and original programming at Nickelodeon. "We have a rich history of putting kids in control with convergent programming like the Kids’ Choice Awards, SpongeBob’s ‘Best Day Ever’ and ME:TV; iCarly takes that kid empowerment strategy one step further."

Nickelodeon has also announced the three new animated series, as well as renewals on the freshman shows The Naked Brothers Band and Just Jordan. With the previously announced new series Tak and the Power of JuJu, Back to the Barnyard and Ni Hao, Kai-lan, plus new episodes of returning shows like SpongeBob SquarePants, Nickelodeon will premiere more than 700 new episodes of new and returning series throughout the 2007-08 season.

"Our goal is always to give preschoolers, kids and tweens the very best programming in television, and to combine fresh new creative ideas with enduring hits that kids love," said Tom Ascheim, the EVP and GM of Nickelodeon Television. "SpongeBob is number-one with kids and Dora is tops with preschoolers, so we’re going to give them more, as well as new episodes of their favorite live-action and animated shows. And we are very excited about the new shows that will be joining the lineup this year."

The Umizumiz an interactive preschool series set in a global urban city featuring a mix of animation, photography, origami patterns and preschool punk music. Bubble Guppies is an interactive, animated variety show for preschoolers set in a 3-D, CGI-animated underwater classroom. And Making Fiends is an offbeat animated tale about two unlikely friends, Vendetta and Charlotte, which was first developed as a series of shorts for the TurboNick broadband platform.

The network has picked up 13 additional episodes each of TEENick freshman hits The Naked Brothers Band and Just Jordan, along with 13 episodes of Zoey 101. In addition, there are 13 new episodes of SpongeBob SquarePants and 20 episodes of the animated hit The Fairly OddParents. On Nick Jr., preschoolers can look forward to a fifth season of Dora the Explorer, which includes 14 new episodes and three hour-long television movies.