Children's BBC/CBBC on Nickelodeon (1996-99)

Unless you had cable or satellite during the mid-late 90's, the chances are you have little recollection of CBBC on Nickelodeon: what I believe to be one of, if not Auntie's earliest dip-their-toes into the multi-channel landscape in its native country.

The strand started in 1996, and was hosted by the CBBC puppet presenter at the time, Otis the Aardvark: the programming was no less different than that of CBBC on Choice a few years later: primarily aimed at a pre-school audience; (your Postman Pat, Playdays, Noddy, Fireman Sam, etc), the strand ended on July 16th, 1999, I assume because the BBC had already launched Choice and Knowledge and no longer wanted to be associated with a commercial rival.


However, when the BBC had it's corporate overhaul in October 1997, CBBC on Nick was off for a week and returned with new titles and graphics to match the new look of the flagship channels strand, and a brand new puppet presenter... Marvin P. Porcuvark; (I assume he was Emlyn the Gremlyn's forgotten cousin.)


One thing that particularly strikes me is the set, which is completely different from either Pres A or TC9, I assume it was one of Viacom's on lease by the Beeb? Also, as the BBC runs as a commercial free organisation in its homeland, there were no advert breaks during CBBC on Nick.

By 1996 they part owned two commercial satellite channels - UK Gold and UK Living. Although apart from the archive programmes it supplied there was no BBC branding or any new BBC content


Incidently UK Living had a kids slot at one point, it took over the 'Tiny TCC' slot when The Children's Channel closed down and it became 'Tiny Living'

A reason why CBBC may have had a slot on Nickelodeon was because on Sky in those days, BBC 1 and BBC 2 were not on the service, so the block could have been for youngsters whose parents may have switched to Sky, when Sky Digital came around it had every BBC channel of that time, rendering the CBBC on Nick strand as useless.

Surely people who had Sky would still also have terrestrial?

The ‘Tiny Living’ slot was in place before TCC closed, although I’m not sure how long it had been in place for prior to TCC ending.

I wonder whether CBBC on Nick was part of an agreement at the time, as the BBC had the rights to a lot of Nickelodeon originals in the mid 1990s, notably Rugrats, Kenan & Kel, Clarissa Explains It All and Ren & Stimpy to name a few.

During the late 1990’s a number of Nickelodeon programmes started to appear on ITV and Channel 4.

More likely Otis's illegitimate lovechild

although Wild Thornberrys and Fairly Odd Parents still appeared on the BBC after this.

Late 1990s? Rocko's Modern Life was on Channel 4 in 1993, Aaah Real Monsters was on there not long after.

The links were recorded in Pres A.

Was it as early as 1993? I stand corrected.

Might have been 1994 seeing as it only started in September 1993 in the US, but it definitely wasn't any later.

There's a trailer from August 1994 here, looks like this is when they started showing it:



This clip has the same trailer and also shows they were showing Doug at the same time:

Let's not forget Rugrats, which was on CBBC from 4 April 1993 to 17 February 2005 then it moved to CITV later on.


Also, Arthur, Mona the Vampire and Rotten Ralph also aired Nickelodeon as well.