Nickelodeon's iCarly reboot may be Paramount+'s most successful show to date.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Nickelodeon president and CEO Brian Robbins discussed iCarly's success, including how the network licensed seasons of the teen comedy to Netflix in order to build an audience. "We knew we were going to do a reboot of iCarly, it just took us a while to put it together," Robbins said. "Once we knew we had it going, we licensed just a season or two of iCarly to Netflix and it exploded with new kids discovering it for the first time, and fans who grew up on it rediscovered it. The demand for the new show was at such a fever pitch by the time [the new show] launched that it propelled iCarly to be, if not the most successful show on Paramount+, one of the most successful shows."

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Robbins specified that the young adult audience is what propelled iCarly to become as popular as it did. "In fact, what's driving the success of iCarly is the young adult audience," he said. "It's a white-hot space for us. Adjacent to the kids programming, YA is a sweet spot for me in my career -- obviously in my previous life, founding Awesomeness and making things like To All the Boys franchise and PEN15 and a bunch of stuff for streaming -- or shows like Smallville and One Tree Hill and movies like Varsity Blues."

He continued, "It's something I'm always interested in. Another film that we're making for Paramount+ this year is called Hush, Hush, which was based on a New York Times best-seller. We're going to lean heavily into YA to really propel streaming, not only domestically, but globally."

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Robbins also specified that iCarly, along with Avatar: The Last Airbender, would eventually become Paramount+ exclusives. "It's not like this is some secret we're pulling the wool over anybody else's eyes on other services," he said. Robbins suggested that licensing the series to other platforms allows them to cultivate an audience. This way, fans will turn to Paramount+ when the streaming service publishes new related content and regains exclusivity. According to Robbins, this had been his strategy from the start.

iCarly stars Miranda Cosgrove, Nathan Kress, Jerry Trainor, Laci Mosley and Jaidyn Triplett. The first four episodes are streaming on Paramount+ with new episodes airing every Thursday.

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Source: The Hollywood Reporter