(OPINION) ETH – The latest television and internet ratings reveal Nickelodeon’s efforts to promote the LGBTQ agenda to children may be backfiring as the cable network has reportedly lost two-thirds of its audience in the last four years.
Why? Some entertainment writers are saying a lot of parents don’t think it’s so great. The independent entertainment blog Pirates and Princesses reported Nickelodeon YouTube videos were “downvoted to such a degree that they’ve now hidden the ratio.” The blog says the Nickelodeon cable network has seen a major decline in viewers since it began overtly pushing the LGBTQ agenda to its young viewers:
“Since July of 2017, Nickelodeon’s viewership has dropped from 1.3 million average viewers per week to a June of 2021 average of only 372,000. In only four years, Nickelodeon has dropped more than two-thirds of its audience. 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+.
It’s thus easy to see why Viacom is leaning so heavily into older Nickelodeon content. Perhaps hoping to capitalize on what once worked versus what is rapidly losing audience, the company has resurrected Rugrats and iCarly (among other shows) to try to drive nostalgic fans to the service.
But there are signs that Viacom has not learned any lessons and is retrofitting these old shows with the same principles that have resulted in Nickelodeon’s huge loss in ratings. Even with a show about infants, much of the headlines have been about a retconned, now-lesbian character; whatever your thoughts on that issue, it’s hard to see how a children’s show about infants is best served in advertising when the news is all about sexuality.”
Megan Basham, writing for The Daily Wire noted: “This is particularly bad news for parent company ViacomCBS, which has been attempting to bulk up its streaming service, Paramount+, by adding several hundred hours of Nickelodeon programming to the platform’s library.” READ MORE
