Kids are smarter than TV execs thought

Way fewer kids are tuning into longtime kids-TV king Nickelodeon (AKA home of Sponge Bob Square Pants). According to the Hollywood Reporter, kids are turning into savvier TV watchers.

“It’s dramatically different from how I grew up and dramatically different from how kids were growing up 10 years ago,” says Cyma Zarghami, president of Nickelodeon since 2004, of the way children are consuming content. “This generation of kids has grown up in an on-demand world, so they can watch what they want when they want it.”

It also turns out kids DON’T love repeats. “What was once an immutable principle of kids TV — that children like to watch their favorite shows again and again — also is being questioned.

And, if they get bored, they go somewhere else to be entertained.  Like the Internet.