Nickelodeon Arabia

It was the second channel in the joint venture between Viacom International Media Networks and Arabian Television Network, part of Arab Media Group, the largest media group in the United Arab Emirates, after the successful launch for MTV Arabia (later known as MTV Middle East).[1] The website was nickarabia.com.

As of 2011, it was currently the only Nickelodeon channel worldwide that had not changed its logo from the orange splat to the orange text after the mother company's 2009 rebrand. Since late 2010, the channel had been suffering a frozen broadcast, broadcasting its usual programmes repetitively without any evidence of upcoming updates. Its official website went down, and there were no clear indications or citations for why the channel was being heavily neglected, albeit oddly remaining live for the time being. Regardless, the channel remained live for many months into 2011. A similar situation was happening with its sister channel MTV Arabia.

On 8 September 2011, at one minute past midnight in U.A.E. time, and without a mainstream warning, the channel closed and went on an indefinite hiatus without any explanation. The broadcast signal initially displayed nothing but a static message indicating Nickelodeon Arabia's viewers to continue watching Nickelodeon programmes via the Nickelodeon block on MBC 3. The signal then reverted to a casual test card a few days later , and the channel was de-listed by various satellite television providers. As of 2011, the signal itself disappeared completely.[2]

On 17 December 2014, it was announced that Viacom International Media Networks would launch a related feed of Nickelodeon Arabia (also in HD) on the Dubai-based pay-TV service OSN, along with a Nick Jr. channel. Both channels launched on 5 January 2015 in Arabic only, but later launched an additional English audio track in February 2015. A dedicated Nickelodeon website, social media accounts and an exclusive Nick app were launched.

On January 5, 2015, Nickelodeon Arabia returned on Orbit Showtime Network (OSN) as a related version/part of their children/pre-teen Pay-TV channels.

The animated shows currently airing on Nickelodeon Arabia are in Arabic and English. The live-action TeenNick shows originally aired in English with Arabic subtitles. However, original social shows produced by Nickelodeon Arabia's own studio, such as Shoof Kids and Jamaatna, were also in Arabic.

Most of the network shows were outdated, older series at the time that have already been cancelled or have ended before their debut, with the exception of SpongeBob SquarePants, although they are considered fairly never-before-seen by most of the Arab audience at one time, in either their English or Arabic formats. There were even several series yet to debut on Nickelodeon Arabia, with exception of The Fairly OddParents, which apparently already settled on the Middle Eastern Disney Channel. Although Fairly OddParent characters did appear in activity segments from Nickelodeon Magazine cutouts.

Like most Arab channels, Nickelodeon did feature censorship, but this is by far limited to simply scenes of French kissing, although any mention of said kisses are retained. This was similar to the censorship on MTV Arabia, but after the relaunch, there is no censorship.

It aired the Nickelodeon India original series Motu Patlu on Nickelodeon Arabia.

• Official Arabic website
• Official English website
• Official YouTube Channel