Owned by ARY Group Country Pakistan Headquarters Karachi Owner ARY Group | Picture format 4:3 (576i, SDTV) Language English
Urdu Founded 2002 | |
 | ||
Launched 23 November 2006; 10 years ago (2006-11-23) Closed 31 October 2016 (2016-10-31)
(channel license suspended by regulatory authority order) | ||
Nickelodeon Pakistan or Nick is the currently suspended Pakistani feed of Nickelodeon, which is operated by domestic media company ARY Group's Digital Network subsidiary under a brand licensing and programming agreement with Viacom International Media Networks. The network transmits over the Intelsat satellite to cable and satellite viewers in Pakistan, and features some portions of the schedule dubbed or subtitled in Urdu, along with some content directly imported from its Indian sister network (owned by Network 18). It also occasionally licenses Western market children's films.
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Criticism and controversy
In 2005, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority issued an order regarding the ban of several non-private channels because programming which should have been dubbed into Urdu or used Urdu subtitles instead used Hindi terms and references blended into the local scripts, or the networks carried all-Hindi versions imported from India outright. Later on, Cartoon Network Pakistan switched to using the original English audio with Urdu visual translation on PEMRA's orders, but the Urdu dubs with Hindi blended in returned months later.
In early 2010, PEMRA again issued a notice against children's networks, and suspended the licenses of Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, 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, Dr. Firdous Ashiq Awan, 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 network suspension
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 Viacom, 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. The network's website has since been taken down; its Facebook remains up but with no mentions of the suspension, and the only updates being to their profile image, possibly automated.