Kids Choice Awards Leads Weekend Basic Cable Ratings

Nickelodeon saw some much needed success this weekend, as their annual award show in the Kids Choice Awards brought in an average of 6.2 million viewers for the weekend.

Nickelodeon fell to Disney in terms of average daily viewers for the first time this March since the kid's channel took over the top spot in 1995. While the award show does cover multiple different networks and studios, the viewership totals are still huge Nickelodeon.

The program also saw great success in terms of participation in a number of different fields. As per the source:

The star-studded telecast scored the most votes ever with a record 223 million (+11%, over last year). Votes were cast from Feb. 23–March 31, across Nick.com, Nick’s mobile site, brand-new iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch apps, an iPad-optimized site, an application on Nick’s Facebook page and via Twitter and custom hash tags. Nickelodeon’s digital platforms celebrated their highest trafficked day ever on March 31, reaching over 2.3+ million visitors across the net’s website, Facebook page, mobile and tablet sites and mobile apps (+10%). Also, the audience for the live simulcast of Countdown to Kids’ Choice posted double-digit increases (+39%) across these digital platforms over last year.

While this is good for Nickelodeon, their ratings were dwarfed once again by the Oscars, which had nearly 40 million viewers for this year's show.

Nonetheless, the award show is still considered a success for Nickelodeon.

There's an App for That: The KCAs Go Digital

This article from TV by the Numbers has an interesting breakdown of how Nickelodeon "upped the digital presence" of the Kid's Choice Awards this year and how they made the experience more interactive for today's tech-savvy kids (with parental supervision, of course).

The biggest changes in the KCA this year included:

• Fans being able to vote on Nickelodeon's mobile website and a variety of apps available for Apple products, Facebook, Twitter, and their SMS service.
• Livestreaming across a number of social media websites and the Nickelodeon website 
• Orange carpet coverage reminiscent of the Oscars' pre-show, with multiple cameras showing exclusive backstage content that was streamed live on the mobile apps and Nick.com, interactive polls, and real-time updates and photos.  
• The Global Slime Collection, a digital game played through Apple and iOS device apps where kids found slime hidden in photo galleries, news, and videos promoting the awards show.
• A KCA news blog, trivia, quizzes, and two games that were promoted through the Nickelodeon website as well as their virtual worlds and websites (Monkey Quest, Neopets, and Petpet Park).

This was interesting to me because it shows that it's not only adult audiences who are becoming more and more fragmented.  Rather than stick to traditional marketing by promoting the show on their channels, Nickelodeon advertised on across their multimedia platforms to ensure they reached all their potential viewers and made the promotions more engaging by creating the apps and games. 

The Real Reason Starz Walked Away From All That Netflix Money...

This is a very detailed and interesting account on Business Insider, that expands on the Netflix-Starz relationship talked about in the final chapter of The Hollywood Economist 2.0. Netflix revolutionized movie consumption/distribution through its long-tail business model. Netflix is in trouble because it originally structured their streaming service though an all-important content deal with Starz. But now Starz recognizes that Netflix is actually one of their main competitors, and Netflix faces copycat streaming competition from all angles. What are your thoughts?