Nick at Nite (stylized as nick@nite) is an American cable and satellite television channel that broadcasts nightly over the channel space of Nickelodeon, which is owned by the MTV Networks Kids & Family Group, a unit of the Viacom Media Networks division of Viacom. It broadcasts on Sundays through Fridays from 9:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m., and Saturdays from 10:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. (Eastern and Pacific Time).
Although it shares channel space with its parent channel, Nielsen counts Nick at Nite as a separate channel from Nickelodeon for ratings purposes.Both services are sometimes collectively referred to as "Nickelodeon/Nick at Nite," due to their common association as two individual channels sharing the same channel space.
Nick at Nite appeals to adult and/or adolescent audiences with a lineup of mainly live-action sitcom reruns and a limited amount of original programming. However, because it shares channel space with Nickelodeon (prefiguring Cartoon Network and Adult Swim), some of Nick at Nite's programming – mainly programs that lead off the lineup each night – is aimed at preteens and adolescents between 8 and 15 years of age. The content on Nick at Nite (though looser in regards to profanity and suggestive dialogue compared to the children's-oriented Nickelodeon) is not as raunchy or violent as content on other primetime networks, encouraging a crossover audience between it and Nickelodeon viewers. Due to its reliance on sitcom reruns whose cable syndication rights are limited to a certain part of the day (for instance, the network holds the exclusive nighttime rights to run Friends and Full House, while TBS and ABC Family hold exclusive daytime rights to those respective series), Nick at Nite's cable provider video on demand service exclusively features only their original series, where available.
As of February 2015, Nick at Nite is available to approximately 94,792,000 pay television households (81.4% of households with at least one television set) in the United States.
