Nickelodeon Viewership Continues Downward Decline as It Continues Progressive Push in Children’s Television

Viewership of ViacomCBS’ popular children’s cable network Nickelodeon has plummeted as it continues to promote a progressive agenda on many of its shows.

Nickelodeon’s Nielsen ratings have shown a strong downward trend since at least January 2017, falling from 1.3 million viewers per week to 372,000 in just four years – a loss of over 71% of its viewership. This doesn’t come as a total surprise, as most children’s cable networks have generally faced recent declines.

However, what warrants attention is Nickelodeon’s extreme drop in ratings over the course of one year, where it dropped a substantial 26% in its viewership. This drop contrasts relatively stable yearly viewership statistics for other popular children’s networks such as Disney Channel (-1%) and Boomerang (16%). Other children’s channels associated with Nickelodeon saw similar decreases over the last year, such as TeenNick (-36%), Nicktoons (-27%), Nick Jr. (-24%), Nick at Nite (-11%).

Some speculate that Nickelodeon’s decline is in part due to its heavy push in the last year to incorporate progressive ideologies into its programming. Independent entertainment blog Pirates and Princesses suggests that this ideological push has contributed to both Nickelodeon’s viewership decline as well as the low subscriber growth of Paramount+, the network’s newly created streaming service.

“In only four years, Nickelodeon has dropped more than two thirds of its audience,” the blogger writes. “That is catastrophically bad for the cable channel, but with cable on the way out, maybe it’s not so bad? The catch here is that it is, in fact, that bad and perhaps worse, simply because Nickelodeon seems to be the primary driving force behind new subscribers to Paramount+ (author’s emphasis).”

In just the last year, Nickelodeon has heavily pushed progressive ideals into its programming. Below are some examples:

• Betty DeVille, a Rugrats character who was once the happy wife of Howard DeVille, will now be a single, openly gay mother in the rebooted series. Unfortunately for Howard, his fate is not yet confirmed, so we can only assume that he has been killed off for the sake of progressivism.
• Nickelodeon assured everyone that Spongebob Squarepants supported the LGBTQ+ community in a tweet last year.
• Blue’s Clues featured a gay pride parade with a music cover sung by Andrew Levitt, a drag queen who goes by the name Nina West.
• Nickelodeon announced that they have cast a 13-year-old transgender actor to star in its live-action series Danger Force. Additionally, the network partnered with the “Trans Youth Acting Challenge” in order to “help young transgender or ‘nonbinary’ people become actors.”
• For Earth Day, Nickelodeon tweeted out a video teaching children about environmental racism and climate change.

As Christians, it is important for us to not only refuse to conform to the sinful desires of our culture and world, but it is equally vital that we step forward to protect children from being misled into believing that sin is okay. That’s why Focus on the Family provides many resources to help educate and protect children – including Plugged In, which helps millions of people each month learn about what is really being shown and taught within popular movies, television shows, video games, songs and more.

As modern-day schools and corporations begin to push these topics more frequently, it is helpful to take action by monitoring the media consumption of your children and teaching your children a Christian worldview so that they can understand right and wrong. “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” – Proverbs 22:6

Related articles and resources:

‘Blue’s Clues & You!’ Celebrates LGBT Pride with New Alphabet Song

Corporations, Entertainment and Government Promote ‘LGBT Pride Month’ – Often Targeting Children

Focus on the Family’s Plugged In

How to Talk to Your Children About Homosexuality: A guide for parents

Increase in LGBT Characters in Children’s Entertainment – Focus’ Plugged In Gives Advice for Parents

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