[Saph]

When Viacom Inc. (VIA.B 0.00%) renewed "SpongeBob SquarePants" for a ninth season last year, the media network's Nickelodeon channel called it "a testament to creator Stephen Hillenburg's vision, comedic sensibility and his dynamic, lovable characters."

What was left unsaid, however, is that this may be the last hurrah for the Bikini Bottom gang.

The iconic children's cartoon, which debuted 13 years ago, is long in the tooth. As the The Wall Street Journal recently noted, the average number of viewers ages 2 to 11 watching the show at any given time dropped 29% in the first quarter from a year earlier.

One reason is that Viacom got lazy and stuffed its schedule full of SpongeBob reruns, which the paper noted accounted for 31% of Nickelodeon's programming in 2011, up from 23% in 2007.

During Thursday's earnings conference call, CEO Philippe P. Dauman argued that Nickelodeon may be down but is far from out. He noted that "The Legend of Kora" attracted 4.5 million total viewers in its debut, the most of any Nickelodeon animated show in three years, and that new episodes of "SpongeBob" and other programs in the quarter should bolster ratings.


"SpongeBob" was even blasted by the American Academy of Pediatrics for being a bad influence on children. It found in a study that kids were "significantly impaired in executive function immediately after watching just nine minutes of a popular fast-paced television show relative to after watching educational television or drawing."

According to a website devoted to "SpongeBob," many fans felt the cartoon "jumped the shark" after the release of the movie based on the show in 2004.

"Fans also began to turn away from the series, and online fan sites became deserted," according to spongebob.wikia.com. "Although the show is still criticized, some SpongeBob fans believe it could be making a comeback."

I've seen some of the newer series and I think they're just as good as the old ones