NickMusic is an American pay television network and spin-off of Nickelodeon that mainly carries music video and music-related programming from younger pop artists that appeal to Nickelodeon's target audience, with some videos edited for content to meet a general TV-PG rating applied across the network's broadcast day, or replaced with a lyric video instead.
Like its sibling music video-only networks BET Jams, BET Soul, and CMT Music, NickMusic is based on an automated "wheel" schedule that was introduced during the early years of MTV2. A new loop starts at 6 a.m. Eastern Time, and is then repeated at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m.
History
As MTV Hits
The network launched on May 1, 2002, with its programming composed entirely of music videos. As with MTV Jams, the network was named for a daily program on MTV; in this case, MTV Hits, which was that network's main pop music video program. The network composed of current hit music videos, along with a few older videos from earlier in the year, as well as a few from the late 1990s. The network maintained a commercial-free format, other than internal promotions for MTV and MTV-branded properties.
My Hitlist era (2005–2006)
In 2005, the network began airing a feature called "My Hitlist Month", which was based on viewer selected playlists, submitted to a newly launched network website. This, as well as artist-selected playlists, aired occasionally on the network through 2006.
Playlistism era (2006–2011) On December 18, 2006, the "Hit List" theme returned to MTV Hits. At first, "Playlistism" composed of replays of the viewer hit lists from the past, as well as new playlists from sister networks MTV2 and MTVU, as well as artist and themed playlists. In 2009, the network began to accept traditional commercial advertising, which generally composes of direct response advertising and in the past, ads for ringtone providers.
March 2012 reimaging
Until March 26, 2012, the network's logo remained the same since its launch, with a minor readjustment in February 2010 of the iconic "M" to remove the Music Television tagline and a small quarter of the logo in line with the official rebranding of all MTV networks. A new logo and imaging was introduced on that date, featuring all text in bold Helvetica, including a minimal-style logo with the 2010 MTV logomark next to the word "Hits". MTV Jams followed with the same reimaging on April 13.
Final schedule
The network discontinued many of the playlist shows throughout 2009 and 2010, while keeping the Playlistism name until it faded out entirely by late January 2011, when the network restored its former 'illustration from a music box' imaging to identify the network between commercial blocks. The lower-left banner which formerly listed playlist dedications became dedicated to promotional messages and a rolling advertisement for the network's music video web portal before eventually being discontinued. MTV News segments (usually not pertaining to news but press junket segments about upcoming films and albums) also aired, before being removed in early 2015 due to various financial issues within Viacom and a reorganization of the news division back towards current events.
Generally, except for artists which were popular before the period, all music videos carried by MTV Hits were from the era after the 1998 premiere of Total Request Live, with a heavy focus on current music.
Trademark reuse for Internet service (2019–2020) The MTV Hits branding returned to use by Viacom on May 13, 2019, as an Apple TV+ and Amazon channel offered by Viacom charging $5.99 monthly, which carried MTV archival programming (the aforementioned "Hits" in this form) from the mid-1990s to the early 2010s. No music video programming was offered by the MTV Hits service. The service's programming was merged onto what is now Paramount+ in the fall of 2020.