Merger with The Entertainment Channel and relaunch as A&E
NBC had been facing a similar problem in finding a sufficiently large audience for The Entertainment Channel, which aired such expensive programming as BBC cultural imports from the United Kingdom and live broadcasts from Lincoln Center.[4] The Entertainment Channel ended broadcasting on March 31, 1983, after receiving only approximately 45,000 subscribers by November 1982.[6]
Hearst/ABC Video Services and NBC ultimately decided to merge ARTS and The Entertainment Channel to form a single service, the Arts & Entertainment Network (A&E), which launched on February 1, 1984;[7] ABC would exit the partnership soon afterward (ironically, the Walt Disney Company, which bought ABC in 1996, would acquire an ownership interest in A&E in the early 1990s). A&E took over the transponder space held by ARTS, as well as that network's timeslot over Nickelodeon's channel space.
That summer, A&E announced that it would move the network to its own dedicated transponder and become a separate 24-hour cable channel to take better advantage of valuable satellite time. The move took place on January 1, 1985, with Nickelodeon expanding part of its programming schedule to fill the time period formerly held by A&E with more teen-oriented programming and displaying a test pattern screen after the network signed off later in the evening.
As a result of A&E's separation from Nickelodeon, MTV Networks President Bob Pittman commissioned Geraldine Laybourne, who served as general manager of Nickelodeon at the time, to develop programming to fill the vacated time period. Laybourne asked programming and branding consultants Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman, founders of Fred/Alan Inc. (who launched successful branding campaigns for MTV when it launched in 1981, and for Nickelodeon in 1984), to come up with programming ideas. Seibert and Goodman came up with the idea to launch a nighttime block of classic television series, modeled after the "Greatest Hits of All Time" oldies radio format, after being presented with over 200 episodes of the 1950s sitcom The Donna Reed Show. On July 1, 1985, Nick at Nite launched over Nickelodeon's channel space in the 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific time period, featuring reruns of classic television series from the 1950s to the 1970s.
The merged A&E unit retained the same arts-focused and foreign drama programming for the next twenty years, though it eventually drifted towards a direction heavy towards reality television by 2008 and has long drifted away from the channel's original remit.[7]
