Nick at Nite (stylized as Nick@Nite from 2002 to 2007 and since 2009) is an American nighttime programming block on Nickelodeon. The block's programming broadcasts during the evening, primetime and late night hours. The block initially consisted of syndicated sitcoms and films from the 1950s to the 1970s. Nick at Nite gradually shifted its programming to primarily airing sitcoms as recent as the mid-1990s to the 2010s. The block was launched on July 1, 1985, and it replaced A&E on Nickelodeon's channel space after it spun off into its own 24-hour channel. The block launched present-day TV Land in 1996. The Nickelodeon, a division of Paramount Skydance's networks unit, generally regards Nick at Nite as a separate channel that shares space with Nickelodeon on the channel due to the block targeting adult audiences. Nielsen has reported Nick at Nite ratings separately from Nickelodeon since 2004.br:Nick at Nite
History Early years In 1984, A&E Networks (a joint venture between Hearst, NBC, and ABC) announced their plans to spin off A&E into a separate 24-hour cable channel. Nickelodeon's general manager, Geraldine Laybourne, was asked by MTV Networks President Bob Pittman to develop programming for the vacated time slot. This was to take advantage of valuable satellite time as A&E was moving to its own channel. Laybourne sought the help of programming and branding consultants Alan Goodman and Fred Seibert of Fred/Alan Inc. – who were previously successful in MTV (music video channel) and Nickelodeon's extensive 1984 rebranding – to come up with new programming ideas. The transition to a 24-hour broadcast for Nickelodeon took place in June, with some cable providers substituting the primetime schedule of other niche-interest networks onto the channel space.
After being presented with over 200 episodes of The Donna Reed Show (a 1950s sitcom which Laybourne despised), Goodman and Seibert conceived the idea of the "first oldies TV network." They modeled the new evening and overnight programming block on the successful oldies radio format "The Greatest Hits of All Time" and branded the block with their next evolution of MTV- and Nickelodeon-style imagery and bumpers. Head programmer Debby Beece led the team to the name "Nick at Nite" for the new block; a logo originally conceived for the block was based on Nickelodeon's "pinball" logo introduced in 1981, which was discontinued with that network's rebrand. Fred/Alan developed the original logo with Tom Corey and Scott Nash of Boston advertising agency Corey McPherson Nash, creators of the well-recognized Nickelodeon orange splat logo (Nick at Nite's logo design would maintain a separate, yet similar visual appearance and design from its parent network).
Nick at Nite debuted at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on July 1, 1985 as a block on Nickelodeon. Its initial programming (running from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., seven nights a week) was a mixture of sitcoms, films, and one drama series. The block was led by Dennis the Menace, and accompanied by The Donna Reed Show, the unconventional comedy Turkey Television (which, like Dennis, also aired on Nickelodeon), and Route 66. A nightly film presentation, branded as the Nick at Nite Movie, aired at 9 p.m. ET through the end of the decade, and included such classic films as the 1947 film The Red House and the 1937 film A Star Is Born. The same five-hour block of programs originally repeated from 1 a.m. and ran until Nickelodeon began its broadcast day at 6 a.m. ET. As Nick at Nite grew, it would add to its library of shows expanding out to rerun sketch comedy, such as episodes from the early seasons of NBC's SNL as well as the Canadian series SCTV. It also briefly reran the 1970s faux local talk show Fernwood 2 Night. As times went by, the channel's sitcom library expanded to over a hundred shows.
By the early 1990s, Nick at Nite began running a full schedule of programming, with overnight hours filled with a mixture of secondary runs of shows airing on its evening schedule and series that were no longer shown on the evening lineup. In 1995, Nick at Nite celebrated its 10th anniversary with a week-long event, in which the channel aired "hand-picked episodes" of almost every series that had aired on Nick at Nite since its July 1985 debut. Each episode was introduced with its milestone history, episode number, and pop culture references to the individual program's original run on Nick at Nite. A special 10th Anniversary on-screen bug was shown at the bottom left corner of the screen for 10 seconds once per half-hour show, and was used for the entire 1995 year, much in the same vein as the 20th Anniversary logo in 2005 (in contrast, Nick at Nite did not make any acknowledgment of its 25th nor 30th anniversaries following changes in management). The block launched a spinoff, digicable network in 1996 known as Nick at Nite's TV Land, which in 1997 rebranded to just TV Land.
2004–present
In March 2004, Nielsen began splitting up Nick at Nite and Nickelodeon in its primetime and total daytime ratings reports, due to the different programming, advertisers and target audiences between the two services; this caused controversy among executives of some cable channels who believed that this move manipulated the ratings, given that Nick at Nite's broadcast day takes up only a fraction of Nickelodeon's programming schedule. Nickelodeon's and Nick at Nite's respective ratings periods encompass only the hours they each operate under the total day rankings, though Nick at Nite is rated only for the primetime ratings; this is due to a ruling by Nielsen in July 2004 that networks have to program for 51% or more of a particular daypart to qualify for ratings for that daypart. For the channel's 20th anniversary celebration in June 2005, TV Land aired an episode from almost every series that had appeared on Nick at Nite.
On January 4, 2006, after the MTV Networks became part of a new Viacom company, Cyma Zarghami replaced Herb Scannell as Nickelodeon's president, and Nick at Nite was placed into Viacom's newly formed Kids & Family Group led by Zarghami.
On January 1, 2007, the coloring of Nick at Nite's logo was changed from blue to orange, matching the coloring of Nickelodeon's logo. Nick at Nite's focus was changed under Nickelodeon control from recognizable television comedy series to family-led situation comedies, including the animated original series Glenn Martin, DDS. On September 3, the network introduced a new logo based on Nickelodeon's longtime "splat" logo, with the orange "splat" formed in the shape of a waning gibbous moon – this effectively integrated the Nickelodeon branding onto Nick at Nite for the first time, as the varied logos that were used from its 1985 launch utilized variants of the Futura Condensed font (the 1984-09 Nickelodeon logo designed by Seibert and Goodman used the Balloon typeface) with various shape backgrounds and a small circle with the word "at" (replaced by an "@" symbol overlaid on a circle background on July 1, 2002 for visual symmetry, owing to the character's building ubiquity from online and eventually into general pop culture) lodged between and staggering the "I"s.
On July 5, 2009, Nick at Nite's programming hours expanded to begin at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time on Sunday through Thursday nights, while the Friday lineup continued to start at 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time until October 2009, when the Friday start time became 9 p.m. (the Saturday lineup continues to have a 10 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time start time due to the presence of the long-running Saturday night comedy lineup on Nickelodeon). Nick at Nite's times of operation have changed several times over the years, to at one point (between 1998 and 2000) beginning as late as 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time on Sunday through Thursdays and ending as early as 5:30 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time.
Nick at Nite overhauled its on-air appearance on September 28, 2009, as part of Nickelodeon's rebranding effort – the new logo, also based on Nickelodeon's logo, stylized the network's name as "nick@nite" (rendered as one word in lowercase letters within the new network logo).YouTube The network also ceased airing the production closing credits for most of its programs (except for those that have tag scenes during the end credits, and originally some series that aired on the network prior to the rebrand that rejoined the network afterward, such as Full House) and began employing network-even closing credits – which Nickelodeon had been utilizing since at least 2000 (both Nick at Nite and Nickelodeon often remove end tag scenes or blooper reels of some shows using this format).
As of September 29, 2025, Nick at Nite programming starts at 7 p.m.
Programming
Nick at Nite's lineup presently includes reruns of syndicated comedy series from the mid 1990s to late 2010s and movie broadcasts. The block previously had its own exclusively-produced original programs (such as See Dad Run and Instant Mom).
Due to its dependence on sitcom reruns whose cable syndication rights are limited to a daypart (a certain part of the day) owing to contracts with studios and/or distributors (for instance, Paramount holds the exclusive cable nighttime rights to run Friends, airing it on both Nick at Nite and Comedy Central, while WBD-owned TBS holds exclusive daytime rights to said series), Nick at Nite has no video on demand service nor Paramount+ presence (formerly its past original series were usually combined within Nickelodeon's video-on-demand section) and its website features no video content.
Programming history Nick at Nite was known as the "first classic TV network," having originally aired older classic television programs from the 1950s through the early 1970s throughout its nighttime schedule. The time range of Nick at Nite's programming has shifted over the years, to the point whereby the early 2000s, its classic series consisted primarily of shows from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, and also included series from the early and mid-2000s by the end of that decade and into the early 2010s. The early success with classic television series, as well as the eventual shift away from series made prior to 1985, eventually led to the creation of over-the-air digital broadcast networks similar to Nick at Nite's original format such as the Retro Television Network, Antenna TV, and MeTV (which have featured many shows formerly seen on Nick at Nite).
Nick at Nite airs approximately all of its programming in hour-long (and sometimes two-hour) blocks, which were branded under the "Double Takes" banner from 2002 to 2007; typically series that air back-to-back are scheduled in two blocks, one in primetime and one in late night. Also typically, series that have been airing on Nick at Nite for at least three years are often moved exclusively to the overnight schedule in order to make room for newly acquired series (though in the past, entire broadcast runs of a few series such as Perfect Strangers and Charles in Charge have aired in an overnight graveyard slot for a short period of time following their first premiere on the network). For about a year-and-a-half prior to the September 28, 2009 rebrand, Nick at Nite aired marathons of programming from midnight to 5:00 a.m. Eastern Time.