There’s nothing like an award show to get the blogging fingers twitching, and this Saturday, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson will be hosting the 2009 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards, from UCLA. In keeping with the voting theme Eric and I have had going on the site for a while, I thought I’d share my thoughts about some of this years nominees.

The Good

Two of the yellowest icons in cartoon history go head-to-head this time; SpongeBob SquarePants and The Simpsons. SpongeBob won the Favorite Cartoon award for five years running, before losing out for the first time to Avatar: The Last Airbender last year. We’ll see if the little fella’s got his game back this time around, but don’t count out competition from The Fairly OddParents and Phineas & Ferb.

The live action television nominations the year feature usual suspects, Hannah Montana and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody as well as, surprisingly, Zoey 101, which ceased production back in May of last year. I’m hoping iCarly gets the nod. It’s a genuinely funny, and charming show which has more intelligence than other offerings aimed at the same demographic. Of course I’m biased towards anything that involves a cross-platform element, and iCarly achieves this well.

The Bad

“Hey Kids! As responsible adults with an understanding of how media influences your little lives, we all know you’re familiar with the crrrazy antics of Batman and Robin back in the 60′s. This is why we’re sure you can totally identify the difference between that retro rascal, The Joker and his modern interpretation – you know, the little scamp with a penchant for sticking knives in people’s mouths? BAZAM!”

I’m not going to go off on a tangent about what’s suitable for kids to watch or not, but seriously, someone forgot what the first letter of KCA stands for. Just be sure to cover your ears if Christian Bale has to give an acceptance speech. KAPOW!

The Interactive

Kid-voters essentially get two choices this year – plumbers or rockers, because two Mario games are going up against melodic mashers, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Interestingly, perhaps even expectedly, the Nintendo presence is unmistakable. Two of the games are Wii exclusives, and the other two are both strong sellers on the Nintendo console. I admit, there’s a lot of competition between the pair of music games, but two Mario games as well is a touch too much. Mario Super Sluggers – really? What about Little Big Planet?

This leaves me wondering; why do the KCA’s have no award category for websites or online games? I’m not suggesting the big brands throw their massive sites into the mix, but smaller, quirkier, new innovative websites could create some buzz. In England, BAFTA has had an award category for online/multimedia content since 2002 – I should know, we had their award statues all over the place when I worked at CBBC. The Internet is every bit a part of kid’s lives, if not more so, than television and video games, so it’s a no-brainer to give some recognition to the online medium. Come to think of it, I’d be more than happy to submit some suggestions for next year. Hmmm…

I spent a lot of time in the States in the past, but it’s never quite the same as living in a new place. I don’t yet feel the need to write a Bill Bryson-esque memoir of all the amusing cultural nuances I’ve encountered since living here, but occasionally instances may occur that are relevant in this blog. This explains the odd mix of phrases or terminology I employ – so forgive me if I’m getting in a two and eight here, I’m just covering my bases.

The subject of cultural differences is what brings me to the core of this post, namely ratings of the television kind. I’m going to stick my neck out here and say this – in London I never felt pressured into chasing audience figures for the various shows or websites I worked on. I’m not saying they weren’t important – as part of the bigger picture, they were certainly a major factor, but at that stage of my career I placed most of my focus on delivering content. Combining this with the unique editorial remit of the BBC, namely it being a public service broadcaster, success can’t be judged purely on audience figures, and certainly not on ad revenue.

On the star-spangled side of the pond, however, the situation is completely different. I’m in a world of “prime time” and “syndication” now, and it fascinates me. Not only do I find myself investigating viewing figures more often, but I have begun to think more seriously about the marketability of concepts I plan to pitch. Fear not, I’ve seen Death to Smoochy, and I don’t want to go down the soulless corporate road of no return – I’m purely being realistic, and growing more because of it.

This brings me to the second difference being in the U.S. brings – competition. There’s a lot more of it! Nickelodeon, Disney, and Cartoon Network to name a few, are formidable competition in the U.K. , but they’re center stage here and the numbers involved, both financially and audience-wise are considerably higher.

On this note, Cartoon Network and the newly-launched Disney XD threw their all into capturing young male audiences last week. Both channels announced positive figures. Cartoon Network announced up to a 29% rise in viewing figures compared to the same time last year, but Disney XD had a record rating of 6.5 million viewers on launch day. This was countered by Cartoon Network holding the number one prime time slot for boys aged 6-11, and so it goes on.

There are obviously a lot of numbers being thrown around here, and a great deal to take in, but it’s valuable information that deserves being discussed. I’ll close for now, but my parting question to everyone is, how much awareness do you have of audience figures and how important are they to the project or concept you’re working on?

Nickelodeon have announced they are releasing a string of iPhone apps based on popular characters like SpongeBob SquarePants, Dora and iCarly. If you’re anything like me, I know what you’re thinking – how many kids own iPhones? Cue wavy dream sequence of an eight year old boy carrying a man bag, with white headphones dangling from the top of his designer T-shirt from Threadless… eek!

Wake up, it’s just a dream – for now. There may not be too many iPhone’s appearing in schoolyards yet, but many parents are certain to use these casual games to occupy their little ones on road trips and such like. Case in point, if you pull up behind any kind of car, van or tank with television screens in the back of it, nine times out of ten, SpongeBob is the cartoon that’s being watched. iPhone games are surely a natural progression of this trend.

Competition is set to be expectedly fierce. Disney Interactive have so far launched a couple of iPhone games, with mixed reviews, however there are some cool third party apps available that allow visitors to Disney parks to find their way around and get the most of their visit. As far as gaming is concerned, the iPhone has a lot of functional similarities with the Nintendo DS, so even though direct ports might not be possible, lessons could definitely be learned in terms of playability and user interaction. I’m looking forward to see what comes next.