Nick at Nite, Nick Jr. Make Schedule Changes
After three nights of horrible ratings, Nick at Nite has already moved to reduce the amount of How I Met Your Mother this week. Originally, the series was to air all week from 11pm-6am each night. However, after the show’s first three nights on the network resulted in very low ratings (scoring 720,000 total viewers for its launch Monday at 11pm and only rising to as much as 999,000 the next night at 11pm and dropping to 698,000 viewers for the very next episode – we can only assume the overnight airings were even worse) the network has decided to make changes starting tonight.
The Mother marathon is over. Starting tonight, four episodes will air each night from approx. 11pm-1:24am. Full House will take back the 9pm hour which had been occupied by the seemingly required four episodes of Friends a night. Instead Friends will remain in the 10pm hour and also air from ~1:24-2:36am. (In case you are unaware, Nick at Nite runs off the clock each night from 11pm-6am to accommodate a total of 60 minutes of extra commercial time.) George Lopez returns with four episodes from 2:36-4:57am and That ‘70s Show ends the night with two episodes from 4:57-6am.
These new changes start tonight and will continue every night moving forward.
Nick Jr. is also making a series of schedule changes starting next Monday, Sept. 15. This past Monday was Blue’s Clues 18th anniversary and the network celebrated by adding the show back to the weekday line-up from noon-1pm. Episodes from the first season aired this week. Starting next week an extra hour will air from 11am-noon as well but will jump around amongst various seasons.
Go, Diego, Go! returns to the Nick Jr. line-up next week, airing weekdays at 10am, replacing one episode of Ni Hao, Kai-lan. Lalaloopsy will also air at 8am, replacing one episode of Tickety Toc. The aforementioned Blue’s Clues 11am hour gain will replace Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Friends, which is now off the line-up.
In the weekday afternoons, Julius Jr. will gain the 4pm half-hour while sill airing at 5pm as well. Zack & Quack moves up a half-hour, now airing at 5:30pm. Team Umizoomi returns to the weekday line-up now from 6-7pm. Peppa Pig gets a little reduction, now only airing at 7pm in the afternoons/evenings. Mixed live-action/CGI series Mia and me will get its first weekday strip at 7:30pm. The Dora the Explorer hour now moves down to 8pm followed by an hour of Bubble Guppies.
On weekends, Julius Jr. and Blue’s Clues will each air four episodes from 6-8am, Julius on Saturdays and Blue on Sundays. Zack & Quack will gain the 9am hour. Dora, Julius and Mia and me also gain some afternoon slots while PAW Patrol returns to the preschooler network in the 9pm hour.
Lastly, a small change that started yesterday: Supah Ninjas has been removed from both Nicktoons and TeenNick’s line-ups. The 39-episode series was airing Monday-Saturday nights from 4-5am on Nicktoons and has been replaced by the return of T.U.F.F. Puppy. On TeenNick the show aired late-Monday nights in the 5am hour and Saturdays in the 7am hour with monthly rotations in the 4am hour each night. All replacements will be filled with similar TeenNick programming that aired on other days in those spots (Marvin Marvin, Ned’s Declassified & Degrassi, respectively).
At least this adds a little flavor to what has been a dull start to the fall schedules…