Dueling SpongeBobs flood German kids' TV (WSJ)
By Nancy Vialatte
As Viacom tries to get Nickelodeon off the ground in Germany, it is finding itself locked in a tug-of-war for children�s attention with the Super RTL channel. And, �SpongeBob Squarepants� is the key player on both sides. Nickelodeon has programmed 18 hours of the little yellow fellow per week versus Super RTL�s 10 hours and the competition doesn't stop there.
The Wall Street Journal says Viacom is to blame for its own headaches as the company sold rights to Super RTL for some Nickelodeon shows after abandoning an attempt to launch the channel in Germany 8 years ago.
Viacom reportedly tried to buy back the �SpongeBob� rights but the rival channel wouldn�t budge and instead added insult to injury by upping the number of episodes it aired prior to Nickelodeon�s local launch last year.
The WSJ chronicles this war of anthropomorphic sea sponges and notes that despite countering an "anti-Nick" campaign led by Super RTL, "media buyers say Nickelodeon has a long way to go to achieve its goal of unseating Super RTL as the top children's channel."
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