Nickelodeon Pakistan or Nick Pakistan, is a pay Pakistani television channel. It is the Pakistani feed of

Nickelodeon Nickelodeon (often shortened to Nick) is an American pay television television channel, channel which launched on April 1, 1979, as the first cable channel for children. It is run by Paramount Global through its List of assets owned by Param ...

, which is operated by domestic media company ARY Group's Digital Network subsidiary under a

brand licensing Licensing means renting or leasing of an intangible asset. It is a process of creating and managing contracts between the owner of a brand and a company or individual who wants to use the brand in association with a product, for an agreed period ...

and programming agreement with

Paramount Networks EMEAA Paramount Networks Europe, Middle East, Africa & Asia (EMEAA) is a division of Paramount International Networks which is fully owned by Paramount Global. The unit's headquarters are in Berlin, with additional offices in Madrid, Lisbon, Paris, Am ...

. The network transmits over the

AsiaSat 7 AsiaSat 7 is a Hong Kong communications satellite, which is operated by the Hong Kong based Asia Satellite Telecommunications Company (AsiaSat). It is positioned in geostationary orbit at a longitude of 105° East of the Greenwich Meridian, ...

satellite to cable and satellite viewers in Pakistan and features some portions of the schedule dubbed or

subtitle Subtitles and captions are lines of dialogue or other text displayed at the bottom of the screen in films, television programs, video games or other visual media. They can be transcriptions of the screenplay, translations of it, or informati ...

d in

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Indian sister network (owned by

Viacom 18 Viacom18 Media Private Limited is an Indian media and entertainment joint venture between TV18 and Paramount Global based in Mumbai. It was founded in 2007 and owns various channels, as well as content production studios in India. History In ...

). It also occasionally licenses Western market children's films. The channel used to be available as a free to air channel but became encrypted on satellite since 2015. Unlike its Indian counterpart, which it replaced, this feed regularly airs Nickelodeon-related content, as the Indian feed has recently been airing local content more often due to the localization strategy.

History

Prior to the launch of the localized Pakistani feed of Nickelodeon, the Indian feed was provided in Pakistan. However, the Indian feed ceased to be distributed in that country right after ARY Digital Network launched Nickelodeon Pakistan on 23 November 2006, with a brand licensing agreement with

Viacom Viacom, an abbreviation of Video and Audio Communications, may refer to: * Viacom (1952–2006), a former American media conglomerate * Viacom (2005–2019), a former company spun off from the original Viacom * Viacom18, a joint venture between Par ...

. It mainly broadcast content in English, along with some programming aired in

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

rather than being dubbed in Urdu. This caused PEMRA to temporarily suspend Nickelodeon's license in 2016, although the channel later resumed broadcasting. In 2010 Nickelodeon Pakistan took on the network's current worldwide imaging, including its logo. Its website was sunset in early 2021, presumably as it heavily utilized the discontinued

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

graphics/video format, and it was deemed more cost-effective to utilize the network's

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin M ...

page than build out an entirely new modern website. On 1 April 2022, Nickelodeon Pakistan officially began carrying their schedule in native or dubbed Urdu full-time.

Regulatory actions

In 2005, the

Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) ( ur, ) is an independent and constitutionally established federal institution responsible for regulating and issuing channel licenses for establishment of the mass media culture, print a ...

issued an order regarding the ban of several non-private channels because programming which should have been dubbed into

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

terms and references blended into the local scripts or the networks carried all-Hindi versions imported from India outright. In early 2010, PEMRA again issued a notice against children's networks and suspended the licenses of Nickelodeon and

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (often abbreviated as CN) is an American cable television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. It is a part of The Cartoon Network, Inc., a division that also has the broadcasting and production activities of Boomerang, Car ...

, disallowing them from broadcasting. In the meantime, the Pakistani government pushed unsuccessfully for PTV or another domestic broadcaster to launch a children's network to replace private broadcasters in order to assure PEMRA compliance with language standards. On 1 August 2011, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting,

Firdous Ashiq Awan Firdous Ashiq Awan (Punjabi, ur, , born 11 January 1970) is a Pakistani politician from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. She has served as Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information and Broadcasting from 2019 to 2020, Federal Minister for N ...

, announced the restoration of the Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network licenses, allowing their return to the air, though she expressed disappointment that a domestic Pakistani broadcaster would not step up to broadcast children's programming, nor PTV would launch one, and that PEMRA would accommodate the launch any such network.

2016 temporary network suspension and further difficulties

In the aftermath of the 2016 Uri attack, PEMRA again focused on Nickelodeon Pakistan as the network had begun to share programming with Nickelodeon India due to cost concerns, both within ARY and

, and felt ARY was shirking off PEMRA's orders in order to economize against their orders; this also included the return of Hindi-blended and all-Hindi content to the Nickelodeon Pakistan schedule since their 2011 return to the air. The regulatory authority ordered a ban of the broadcasting of all Indian-originated media after 19 October, though PEMRA ruled that ARY Group had disregarded the order and continued to air imported programming with Hindi language content from Nickelodeon India during the restricted period. The network's license to broadcast was suspended on 31 October, with local providers pulling the network on PEMRA's orders. Shortly thereafter, on 10 November, a stay from the

Sindh High Court The High Court of Sindh ( ur, ) is the highest judicial institution of the Pakistani province of Sindh. Established in 1906, the Court situated in the provincial capital at Karachi. Apart from being the highest Court of Appeal for Sindh in ...

effectively nullified the PEMRA order and allowed Nickelodeon's return to the air, stating the body had no authority for the suspension without a comprehensive explanation. ARY also stated that the ruling

PML-N The Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) ( ur, , translit=Pākistān Muslim Līg (Nūn) PML(N) or PML-N) is a centre-right and liberal conservative political party in Pakistan. Alongside the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) and Pakistan Peoples Party ...

party had used the regulatory power of PEMRA to oppose its networks due to its differing political opinions from the PML-N. On 27 April 2017, the network carried an episode of ''

Winx Club ''Winx Club'' is an animated series co-produced by Rainbow S.p.A., Rainbow SpA and later Nickelodeon. It was created by Italian animator Iginio Straffi. The show is set in a magical universe that is inhabited by fairies, witches, and other myth ...

'' which featured a scene of what PEMRA alleged was an "indecently dressed" character, violating the body's 2015 Electronic Media Code of Conduct. After a month of appeals, PEMRA issued ARY a fine of ₨500,000 and warned the network against any further violations.

Programming

External links

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nickelodeon Pakistan

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

English-language television stations in Pakistan Children's television channels in Pakistan Pakistani subsidiaries of foreign companies Television stations in Karachi Television channels and stations established in 2006 2006 establishments in Pakistan