When the rumor mill first started to churn, it was February 1998. The newspaper “Die Welt” published an article about a meeting of the internationals and the management of Nick Germany, at which liquidation was openly discussed. That was not all: The editor went on to claim that the date had even been decided: mid-1998. Click here to read the original article in the Welt archive. Nobody at Nick, including me, believed a word of it. The press department put in a special shift to eradicate the damage caused by the article as quickly as possible. After a month, nobody spoke of it anymore and everyday life went on. Then, at the beginning of May, the next rumors started: There were rumors of a meeting at the end of May, to which some high-ranking members of Nick International would be traveling. Normally, something like this is announced by email or circular, but not this time. We on the first floor were already joking about it. When Achim, the Nick Live editor, called me and gave Wolf (my reporter colleague) and me topics for the beginning of June, I joked that everything would be over by then anyway. I had no idea how right I was…

On May 28th, the day before this meeting, I was still sitting in the office working at 8 p.m. when I could no longer bear this unbearable tension and fear. I called a certain person X, who has a good connection to a high-ranking official in the company, and asked him to ask what was going on, because I just couldn’t stand it any longer. Then I waited about 5 minutes for the call back - here is the dialogue:



Paddy: “So? What does he say?”
Person X: “Go home, it’s over!”

Padd: “…”



It wasn’t a particularly long dialogue, but it was one that hit home. That was the dialogue that turned my life around in one fell swoop - I knew now that my dream job was over. Everything I had fought for for years would be over (for now). I put the phone down and just started crying like a little child. The last time I cried like that was 10 years ago. I went home and wrote emails to friends and tried to somehow process the shock (which of course didn’t work). I didn’t sleep a wink all night and was accordingly tired the next day.

All employees of Nickelodeon Germany were asked to attend a meeting in Konfi IV, 4th floor, as a few high-ranking officials from Nick International and Viacom were in the building. Normally, emails are written to all employees before important meetings. Before this one, however, the news was only spread by word of mouth, which worried all Nicks in advance. None of the “rank and file” knew what would ultimately happen. After the usual platitudes (“You’re all terrific” or “You did a great job”), Karen Flischel announced the closure of Nickelodeon. “We were still looking for another solution ourselves up until 36 hours ago,” Ms. Flischel told the shocked staff. Strangely, she pulled out a tape shortly afterwards with the words: “We have had Nick UK produce a farewell trailer that we will broadcast over the weekend.” This was apparently produced within 36 hours, and by Nickelodeon in England. Nick Germany works his ass off for 3 years and then Nick England can say goodbye. Aha. Unfortunately, they gave themselves away: The cover of the broadcast tape stated that the production date was 27 May 1998. The slate (that’s what they call the board on the tape 10 seconds before the program starts, where the title, length and date are again shown) strangely stated that the production date was 4 February 1998… When asked why the employees were informed so late: “As I said, we didn’t know anything about it ourselves until 36 hours ago and it could have turned out differently.” If things had gone well, why would they have needed a private security company, which had already been booked by the Americans on Tuesday? They suddenly turned up after the meeting and blocked the exits downstairs and their American colleagues took over the 4th floor, the scene of the action. There were no Nick employees downstairs anyway, as everything had been thoroughly searched before the meeting. The former workplace had now become a prison because they didn’t want to risk someone “running away” before receiving their notice, as that would have meant that the notice could not be given until Tuesday at the earliest, meaning that they would have had to pay an extra month. Of course, the powerfully built men were also there to prevent the employees from clearing out the shop.

Everything had been planned for months. Nick Germany’s legal advisor, Dr. Stephan Rippert, was transferred to the USA a few months ago. The reason is obvious: he knows German law well and he was supposed to plan the closure of Nick for Viacom from a legal perspective. The managing director, Dr. Bernd Fronhoff, promised the world’s third largest media group a profit of 170 million marks when he started, but not a single mark of profit was made until the end - on the contrary. He couldn’t care less, with a severance payment of around 600,000 DM. But it was astonishing: on Wednesday evening he was caught carrying out a Nick laser printer. “I’m taking it in for repairs,” the highly paid manager replied to questions from some employees. Has it been repaired in the meantime??? Everyone was supposed to work until the end and give their all until the end. They were denied the chance to look around in peace. They were shown the door overnight. Without warning, without anything. Dr. Fronhoff always denied everything. Not anymore.

Ralf Kühler : I was completely taken aback. When I arrived on the Friday before Whitsun 1998, as usual, between 11 and 12 o’clock, I was completely surprised to see security men suddenly standing outside the studio. When I went in, I saw all the editors looking really sad and packing their things. When I asked: What’s going on here?, I was told: Please go to the boss. Several employees were already sitting there crying. A delegation from the USA came in and told us: Nickelodeon in Germany is no longer profitable. We have to close down. That was a real shock for me. We employees behaved very politely and sensibly. I only had one request: I said the first sentence. Please let me say the last sentence too and explain to the children why we are no longer there. We presenters then got together and made the final show. I still get goosebumps when I tell him about it.

For me as a child, this was also totally dramatic. What confused me at the time was that just six months before the end, real investments were still being made. “Nick Live Club” was launched, the video game “Hugo” was integrated, and new moderators were hired at the beginning of May…

Ralf Kühler: Right, that shows that we in Germany really didn’t know anything about it and were caught completely off guard. I will never forget how the three new presenters sang their song when they joined shortly before the station closed: the catchy tune " We’re the new guys at Nickelodeon!" was played over and over again! After the station closed, an incredible number of children sent sad letters to Nickelodeon and cried on the phone. It was all very dramatic and a real loss for the children.

During the station’s final three days, a testcard aired after each programme informing viewers of its impending closure.

During the final three days, the final episode of Nick Live Club aired, in which the channel’s in-vision presenters thanked viewers for watching before performing a farewell song. This link had actually been filmed on 29 May and was repeated up to and including the final day.[4] The channel closed on 31 May 1998 at the regular time of 8.00 pm. “The Last Nick Live Club” was broadcast again, before the Nickelodeon dogs bumper ended the program one last time at 8:00 p.m. sharp. This time, however, the Nickelodeon logo and the picture faded out very slowly before only a black screen was visible.

Apparently, the day after the channel’s closure, the Nickelodeon Germany farewell promo (which can be seen towards the end of the video) was played on repeat during the channel’s regular 6am-8pm broadcast hours. This apparently went on for 3 months.

It shocks me how this didn’t wear out both the tape and the tape player. It was also a missed opportunity for VH1 Germany to extend their broadcast hours, as they were timesharing with Nickelodeon Germany from 8pm-midnight by the time the latter was taken off air.

but they shouldn’t have played the farewell promo on a constant loop daily for 3 months after the channel had closed, as the farewell promo had apparently been played in between every single programme during the channel’s final three days on air; it’s sad how Viacom in Germany believed it was perfectly acceptable to allow the channel to rot like that.

The fact that they lied to their employees, laid them off at such short notice and neglected the now-defunct channel for three months by looping the channel’s farewell promo for 14 hours a day shows just how little they actually gave a shit.

In my opinion, this was Viacom being a scumbag, Thankfully Nick relaunched in Germany in 2005, Of course SpongeBob, Avatar and Danny Phantom were part of the new one, As far as I know the only traces of the old Nick Germany that joined the new one at launch were Hey Arnold!, Rugrats and The Angry Beavers (the latter probably because it had barely aired on the old one before it was shut down, it was probably the last Nicktoon to debut on the original Nick Germany). The aftermath reminds me of how Disney left River Country to rot after closing it (The River Country Closing Theme still played in the abandoned park, while the lights automatically turned off and on; since Disney did not cut off the power to the water park.) Also how quickly the channel was shut down reminds me of the sudden shutdown of Today FM in New Zealand (Staff were called into a meeting, and the presenters were told to switch to music, Tova even said "They have f*cked us, Now we're all gonna lose our jobs", The frequencies would play a classic hits format for several months before switching to the 00s format station Channel X) Write a blog post about the meeting, security reaction, dying days, and aftermath, also the similar other events