Millions of people have grown up watching Nickelodeon. The channel has become iconic thanks to the many characters you can find on it, like Spongebob Squarepants, Patrick Star, and many others. The station has also expanded into showing some NFL games over the last year. They have done this by adding their own gimmicks to the game. You can routinely see slime being poured on players during big plays, commentary from legendary characters, and explaining the game to kids.
The NFL has been trying to get younger people more interested in football, especially with the decline of those playing it. There’s also Nick at Nite, the program where you can see Will Smith and George Lopez at any late hour of the evening. So many people have such amazing memories from the station while growing up. However, even with all of these accolades, not a lot of people know who owns Nickelodeon. So, who exactly owns this television company that we have grown to know and love?
Who Owns Nickelodeon?
Believe it or not, Nickelodeon is part of one of the largest media conglomerates in the world. That’s because their parent company is Paramount Global (NASDAQ: PARA). If you wanted to, you could own part of Nickelodeon. That’s because they’re traded on Wall Street. Paramount saw a huge opportunity to go public to raise funds. They’re not just a television company, but also one of the biggest movie-producing companies in the world. You can also stream different shows the network produces on Paramount Plus.
Because they’re a publicly traded company, there’s no one sole owner. Shari Redstone is the head Chairwoman of Paramount Global. She used to be on the board for Fandango Media and Cinema Park, making her the perfect person to be in charge of Paramount Global. Bob Bakish is the CEO and President of the company. They made huge moves when they merged with CBS in 2019, creating a media empire.
Even though there’s not one sole owner of Paramount, the people who are in charge are the perfect people. There’s a great combination of movie experience and general business that has kept channels like Nickelodeon around and thriving for so long.
What’s the History of Nickelodeon?
Nickelodeon is one of the longest surviving channels you can find on television today. They first started to air programs in 1979 as a way to help teach kids. If you think about it, most channels at this point were all cable television. One of the coolest parts of Nickelodeon was it used to be commercial-free. This was done as a way to try to keep the attention of kids for longer amounts of time, as kids are known for losing it very quickly. Nickelodeon didn’t have a lot to worry about at first in terms of competition. They quickly cornered the market and nobody thought about fighting them for it.
Later down the line, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network were born and Nickelodeon had to change up what shows they were putting out. It now became a race to see who could be the most entertaining among all of these different options. Paramount Global purchased Nickelodeon in 1990 for $5.1 billion, making it one of the largest acquisitions ever at the time.
What Could Paramount’s Stock Get to?
Because it’s a publicly traded company, people are going to always be invested and curious about where the stock for this company could get to. As of mid-December, the stock is selling for around $15per share. The stock has seen a decline over the past half-decade, as there are now many different options when it comes to consuming entertainment. The other huge issue for Paramount is the writers’ strike that recently ended in 2023.
Because of the strike, there are not going to be a lot of new programs that will be on the stations they own or movies to be made. It’s safe to assume the stock will take a hit before it rises again in 2024. The best case scenario for Paramount is they increase their subscription members to the streaming site. Doing so is the easiest way for them to increase profit. It’s also going to help that the Super Bowl is going to be on CBS this year. This will create tons of ad revenue for the company to boast.
If you’re thinking about buying the stock, you might want to wait it out, at least until new episodes of television are released. There’s no reason to see this stock, or any entertainment stock for that matter, go up anytime shortly. Nickelodeon is a station many people hold dear to their hearts. This makes it easy to root for and want to see around for a long time.
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