Nickelodeon (Scandinavia)

Nickelodeon Scandinavia is a children's channel broadcasting in Denmark, Norway and Finland. In June 2008, a separate channel for Sweden was launched. Nickelodeon Sweden replaced the pan-Nordic channel in all of Sweden. It broadcasts programming from the similarly branded channels in the United Kingdom and the United States, such as Hey Arnold!, SpongeBob SquarePants, Rocko's Modern Life, Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, The Wild Thornberrys as well as a few locally produced programmes.

The channel started broadcasting in 1996 as a part of the analogue Viasat package, only broadcasting in the morning, sharing one transponder on Sirius 1 (previously Marcopolo 1) with ZTV and one on TV Sat 2 shared with 3+ and other Danish channels.^[1] The official launch was February 1, 1997.^[2] Initially it was only broadcasting for six hours between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. A few years later, it switched to another transponder, allowing it to broadcast between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.

The channel is (as of 2006) broadcast on both of the satellite systems pointed at the Nordic region (From Viasat at Sirius 3 with Videoguard encryption and from Canal Digital at Thor 3 with Conax encryption), as well as on the Swedish DTT network and most digital cable networks, and some analogue. Most cartoons are dubbed into local languages, and separate audio tracks are available on satellite. Non-cartoon series aimed an older audience is broadcast in English.

Nickelodeon joined the Swedish terrestrial network in 2001 and the Finnish terrestrial network on September 1, 2007. As of 2007, it was not available from the Norwegian RiksTV terrestrial platform and Denmark was yet to launch digital pay television.

The channel only broadcasts between 6 AM and 6 PM, so it usually shares its bandwidth with other channels. On Viasat it used to broadcasts on the same channel as Viasat Nature, Viasat Crime and Playboy TV, but this was changed in 2007 when Viasat Nature started broadcasting in the day and Nickelodeon would timeshare with VH1 instead. On Canal Digital, the European version of VH1 Classic is broadcast in the downtime, and on Swedish DTT, (Boxer), Star! is shown during the same time. Several cable networks picked the Viasat stream for Nickelodeon.

In June 2008, a separate channel for Sweden was launched. Nickelodeon Sweden replaced the pan-Nordic channel in all of Sweden. The pan-Nordic does however continue to be available in Denmark, Finland and Norway.

A Danish version, Nickelodeon Denmark, was launched in March 2008.^[3][4] It was launched with VH1 Denmark, which simulcasted Nickelodeon for six hours in the morning. The Pan-Nordic version in still available to Danish satellite viewers.

The channel was previously broadcast from the United Kingdom, but in 2008 it handed back its UK license and started broadcasting from the Netherlands instead.^[5][6]

References

1. ^ SS News vol. 01 96.09.27
2. ^ "Nick International". http://www.nick.com/all_nick/everything_nick/intl_home.jhtml. Retrieved 2008-07-15. 
3. ^ "Viacom Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript". http://seekingalpha.com/article/75411-viacom-q1-2008-earnings-call-transcript?page=3. 
4. ^ "PULSE First Quarter". Viacom. http://www.viacom.com/investorrelations/Investor_Relations_Docs/Pulse%20Q1%202008%205.1%20FINAL.pdf. 
5. ^ "Ontheffingsverzoek oorspronkelijk Nederlands- of Friestalige programmaonderdelen". http://www.cvdm.nl/dsresource?objectid=8211&type=org. 
6. ^ "Television Broadcast Licensing Update July 2008". Ofcom. http://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv/ifi/tvlicensing/tvupdates/monthly/200807. 

External links

• Nickelodeon Finland
• Nickelodeon Sweden
• Nickelodeon Denmark
• Nickelodeon Norway