Nickelodeon to kick off Play-a-thon

Nickelodeon, a children’s channel and a part of the Viacom18 group, will go blank for 30 minutes this Saturday. Nick’s popular cartoon characters like SpongeBob SquarePants, Ninja Hattori and Dora will instead come to schools and playgrounds advocating young viewers to spend time outdoors.

Nickelodeon intends to reach out to nearly eight million children through its ‘Let’s Just Play’ programme, a six-week initiative, which culminates with a nationwide Play-a-thon that will last for almost 10 hours.

Cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Hyderabad will host on-ground interactive games and play activities for children. Nina Elavia Jaipuria, VP & GM of Nick India, is all upbeat about the 10 hour play-a-thon.

 

Jaipuria says, “It will comprise an inter-school sports event consisting twisted and high energy games in the morning, followed by a grand finale of the Play-a-thon that will start after school hours, where thousands of kids will play tele-games and have fun with Nicktoons.”

In its effort to include kids from non-metros, Nick is urging young viewers to make their video, create their own games, with their pictures and upload it on the channel’s digital platform, www.nickindia.com.

According to Nick’s estimate, 40,000 kids are expected to participate in the offline event.

“Within the next three months, we will telecast the Play-a-thon on our channel to relive the experience. Next year, we will include more cities in the Lets Just Play initiative,” says Jaipuria. The 24-hour Hindi pay channel, with the option of an English audio feed on direct-to-home set top box, claims a reach of over 29 million households in the country.