|
MIKE REYNOLDS
Continuing to reach out to all kids, Nickelodeon will bow a pair of animated series next week touching on different kinds of diversity issues.
Viacom's kids network will premiere Pelswick, the story of a 13-year-old boy in a wheelchair who refuses to let his disability slow him down, Oct. 24 at 8 p.m. As Told By Ginger, which tracks a 12-year-old girl tiptoeing through the cool and uncool crowds at Lucky Junior High School, debuts the following night in that time slot.
The fearless and funny Pelswick comes from syndicated cartoonist John Callahan, himself a quadriplegic, while Ginger emanates from Klasky Csupo, the creators of Nick faves Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys.
"The shows complement each other," says Nickelodeon EVP/GM Cyma Zarghami. In their own way, each is about the plights involved with going through junior high school.
Zarghami says she believes the shows will score with the older end of Nick's audience, as well as some of its younger viewers.
"When we hit the nail on the head, we get both," she says. "Pelswick and Ginger should have the aspirational appeal to younger children who want to see what it's like when they get older, as well as to kids in junior high who are experiencing many of the same things the characters are encountering."
Elsewhere on the ethnic front, Nickelodeon recently ordered 13 more episodes of the live-action series, The Brothers Garcia. The first season of the show, which features an all-Latino cast and creative team, averaged 1.4 million viewers for six episodes.
Meanwhile, episodes of Dora the Explorer, have averaged 1.1 million viewers among kids 2-5 season-to-date, since its Aug. 14 premiere.
SPEEDING PAST 30 MILLION Buoyed by recent additions with Cablevision, Cox, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications, Speedvision has sped past the 30M subscriber plateau. The milestone for the network, aimed at automotive, marine and aviation enthusiasts, puts Speedvision on pace to exceed its sub goals that were set when it bowed in 1995. "When we launched Speedvision five years ago, we set specific distribution goals in what was a completely different marketplace," says COO Roger Williams. "The fact that we will exceed those goals in 2000 is an unbelievable accomplishment, especially when you consider the added competition for analog distribution over the past several years.
BRAZILIAN PARTNERS ESPN, Globosat Programadora and Fox Sports International have inked an agreement to create a new 24-hour sports network serving Brazil. The agreement teams ESPN and Fox Sports International programming with Globosat's reach into 2.7M Brazilian homes via cable and satellite. Consequently, ESPN's extant pan-regional network currently serving the country will be rebranded ESPN Fox Sports, beginning early next year. Each of the three partners will have an equal stake in the alliance.
Back to this issue
|
