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April 7 2024

SHERRY GUNTHER
TAMARA DOKIC

Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped

MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

I
n the annals of television history, there were few figures as instrumental in shaping the landscape
of television history as Fred Seibert, innovative entrepreneur and creative force behind the birth
of iconic networks such as MTV, Nickelodeon, and The Cartoon Network.

Prior to Fred Seibert’s entrance onto the stage of television, the realm of television programming
was largely confined to a finite mix of content that competed for limited airtime. The scarcity of
channels meant that networks were often reluctant to
take risks on unconventional programming, leading
to largely indifferentiable channels void of a unique
identity. Television of the early 1980s was marked by
the three networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC, which were
indistinguishable from one another. However, with a
growing array of cable channels and an increased
adoption of hand-held remote controls, viewers
began zapping from one channel to another,
challenging programmers to better hold their
attention by making more niche and targeted
programming.

That’s when Fred Seibert stepped onto the scene.

Equipped with a strong passion for music and having prior experience of forming a blues and jazz label,
Seibert brought his creative but limited experience to the TV production scene. Although the jazz cat to
TV executive pipeline was atypical in the industry, Seibert found it all to be part of a very clear
continuum. “I’m attracted to community. To places where disenfranchised people find what they love,
find each other, and get creative. I’m attracted to heart and soul and humor. To things that are wild,
weird, and unpredictable,” shared Seibert.

After putting the then-new MTV on the map with a series of unforgettable, no-two-alike animated
ID spots, he progressed to an association with Nickelodeon, where Seibert proved that his MTV success
was no fluke by going on to cement Nick's dominance on screens through the application of television
branding. At the start of the 90s, Seibert took over the creatively exhausted Hanna-Barbera studio
(known for Tom and Jerry, The Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!) and engineered a
turnaround that brought some of the country's most innovative young animators to its doors. The
launch of What a Cartoon! shorts helped make The Cartoon Network more than a place where old
cartoons went to die. At the essence of every project Seibert took on was the idea of crafting an identity.
Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Case Connections
Born into a family of pharmacists, Seibert seemed destined for a traditional path in pharmaceuticals,
but his fascination with music, ignited by his love for the Beatles, steered him towards a different
direction. Despite pursuing a chemistry major in college, Seibert couldn't shake off his passion for music
and joined Columbia University’s student radio station WKCR-FM. As a college student, Seibert became
a radio DJ and producer, founding a blues and jazz label called Oblivion Records.

Following Oblivion Records, Seibert stumbled into a new position as a country music promoter for
WHN Radio. WHN boldly ventured into becoming New York City’s first country music station, an
objective that initially seemed improbable considering that the city’s music taste did not typically
encompass country music. Seibert’s country radio music endeavor was short-lived. According to
Seibert, “WHN decided to sell off all our radio stations and jump into this thing called “cable TV”,
something none of us really knew much about. So, I found myself trying my hand at making TV
commercials, the first commercials I ever worked on.”

Soon after, Seibert’s boss at WHN, Dale Pon, quit and transferred across the street to work for the
competing television station, WNBC, where the program director was Bob Pittman, a 24-year-old with
the reputation of a seasoned professional. Six months later, Seibert received a call from Pittman, who
had recently transferred from WNBC to WASEC. (In 1979, American Express had purchased half of
Warner Cable Corporation for $175 million, forming a joint venture dubbed WASEC, meaning Warner-
American Express Satellite Entertainment Company.) Pittman, who had learned about Seibert while
working at WNBC with Dale Pon, offered Seibert the role of Director of Promotions for The Movie
Channel. Initially reluctant due to his limited experience in television, Seibert declined the offer:
“Thanks, but I watch TV. I don’t make it.” Eventually, Seibert, growingly impressed by Pittman and
convinced of the idea that, “the job itself never matters; it’s always the boss,” took the position as
Director of Promotions at WASEC.

Seibert, Welcome to Television

“It was on May 5, 1980, that I lucked into my first job in television at WASEC. Within 30 days,
programming head Bob Pittman started putting together the team to launch The Music Channel (the
working name for what eventually became MTV) and had me add to my existing duties as the head of
promotion for The Movie Channel to work on music television too,” shared Seibert. Initially the first
employee of MTV, Seibert was later included in MTV's co-founder group. His path to industry
recognition was anything by straightforward, a reality apparent from the start:

On my first day on the job, I realized that I was the only guy in the Promotion
Department, which made me responsible for all the interstitial stuff between movies
on my own. I found myself tackling various responsibilities, some of which I’m still
not particularly skilled at to this day: writing copy, booking announcers, recording
announcements, determining the video content for the studio. I would bring pieces
to my boss, who would just tell me I did it all wrong.

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

At the time, the average home in America had 2 channels, while New York had an average of 7
channels. In 1980, WASEC, while beginning programming for The Movie Channel and Nickelodeon,
announced their plan to launch 7 more channels. Seibert stated, “A month into the job, Pittman put a
memo on everyone's desk, which said that Warner Communications and American Express, each of
which owned 50% of the company, demanded new forms of media and new programming, upping the
requirement to 10 cable channels.” Seibert, frustrated by the change, marched into Pittman’s office
asking, “What does this change mean for me?”

Pittman responded with, “Well I’m going to hire somebody new to run The Movie Channel, and you
will just work for him. I will run The Music Channel.” Seibert, having quit his previous job for the sole
purpose of working for Pittman, the ‘smarter guy’, was unwilling to accept the proposed change:

Bob, do you know why you have to hire me for this music channel? Well, because I
know more about music than anybody on this floor. Just this morning, you walked
in with Variety magazine, while I walked in with Musician magazine.

Look, just one more thing. Every time I write a promo for the movie channel, you
tell me that I can’t do what I want to do because HBO or CBS don’t do it. If I take
this gig, you can't tell me that I can’t do something just because nobody else is doing
it. We’re the only ones in the world doing a music channel, so we’ll be setting the
standard.

To Seibert’s surprise, Pittman agreed, perhaps a result of their shared background in the radio
industry. Their experiences in radio equipped them with a unique understanding of the importance of
differentiation. “Pittman, his boss, and I had all come from a radio background, so we were accustomed
to the competitive nature, as New York City had 78 radio stations. What had evolved was a pursuit of
differentiating each radio station from the other 77. They had each created some kind of personality, so
we were used to creating the “thing”,” recalled Seibert.

Crafting content for cable television demanded a distinct approach compared to traditional TV. With
its vast array of offerings, cable TV necessitated a unique creative strategy, unlike the landscape of the
average American household that had only two broadcast channels. It necessitated a divergent
approach to audience development, owing to its distinctive landscape.

From Concept to Culture: Crafting the Unforgettable MTV Logo

Although WASEC had its own corporate creative department, Seibert was tasked with designing the
logo in addition to on-air promotion. For the logo, Seibert turned to his childhood, recruiting his oldest
friend, Frank Olinksy: “Frank grew up two doors down from me in our suburban neighborhood, and
was the first artist I ever met, even at the ripe age of five. With both of his parents being artists, he was
destined to be a great artist, but he was also a music freak, introducing me to everybody from The
Monkees to The Mothers of Invention (American rock bands from the mid-60s). When I called him up,
he said that he just opened a design studio, Manhattan Design.” Seibert headed to the design firm – a
storage room next to a Tai Chi studio in Greenwich Village – with Alan Goodman, a college friend of

Dokic, Tamara prepared this case under the supervision of Prof. Sherry Gunther, Graduate Level Professor in
Entrepreneurship in Media and Entertainment at the Marshall School of Business through the Lloyd Greif Center for
Entrepreneurial Studies. The author would like to Fred Seibert for his contributions to the project. This case was developed
from field research and published sources. It was reviewed and approved before publication by a company designate. Cases
are developed solely as the basis for class discussion and are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data
or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.

Copyright © 2024 Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, Marshall School of Business, University of Southern
California. For information about Greif Center cases, please contact us at greifcases@marshall.usc.edu. This publication
may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted without the permission of The Lloyd
Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.
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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Seibert’s, who previously worked in the advertising department at CBS records and later co-founded
the media branding company Fred/Alan Inc. with Seibert.

With one year until their set launch date of August ‘81, the team quickly got to work on designing
logos. “Over the course of a year, they must have done 500 designs, and I rejected all 500 of them.
Finally, 8 weeks before we had to go on air, we’re sifting through the most recent batch of designs, and
my eyes land on this crumpled up piece of tracing paper. It had clearly been thrown away, and
somebody had pulled it out of the garbage and flattened it out. As it turned out, one of Frank’s partners
had sketched it,” shared Seibert.

Reminded of his mentor’s advice on the importance of graphics dominating the screen, Seibert knew
right away that they had the foundation for the MTV logo. Seibert declared, “She had come up with this
big ‘M’, which was perfect, because it filled the screen in a way that reminded me of the 20th century
Fox logo’s dominance. She had just scratched in “TV” next to the “M”, and Frank, influenced by New
York’s graffiti culture, came up with the idea to spray paint the “TV” (see Exhibit 1 for original logo
with paint drips).”

From Solid to Fluid: MTV’s Logo Revolution

The conventional perspective on logos insisted on permanence, but with only eight weeks left to
finalize the logo, the creative team was still far from deciding on the forever solution. “In those days,
there were no computers, so we relied on illustration boards with celluloid overlays. Frank produced
several illustrations, featuring a taxicab or polka dots, one crafted for the heavy metal show, another
that he designed for the punk rock show, and just some designs and illustrations he thought were cool,”
said Seibert. Realizing that there had been a misunderstanding, he clarified to Frank that there would
in fact be no individual shows; instead, the singular music channel was intended to play all genres,
mirroring the music radio method.

Seibert proudly handed in stationary with the logo printed in black and gray – a placeholder for the
to-be-decided color scheme. The senior vice president of marketing laughed, “Do you really think this
is going to last as long as CBS?” (The CBS “eye” was largely considered the greatest media logo ever
designed, and the entire marketing and senior management group at WASEC used to work at CBS.)
Seibert responded, “We’re a rock and roll channel. We’ll be lucky if we’re even here in five years. Of
course not!” The stationary then found its way to the executive vice president, who demanded Seibert
receive creative assistance from a better (meaning more ‘well-known’) graphic designer and, therefore,
increased the budget to $40,000.

Seibert re-embarked on the pursuit of MTV’s logo (see Exhibit 2 for the evolution of the MTV logo).
After receiving new designs from the more expensive, approved artists, Seibert approached Lou
Dorfman, the revered art director for CBS. Dorfman, took one look at the new designs and said, “This
doesn’t look like music to me.” Seibert realized that a possible way to hang on to the original Manhattan
Design logo, which he deeply believed emulated the essence of music, was to continue to steer the newer
designers into the wrong direction.

While the highly commissioned designers continued designing non-music resembling logos, Seibert
returned to his friend Frank and the Manhattan Design team and directed their designs using
Dorfman’s advice on the vision of music. Seibert reflected, “After my boss looked at the better-known
practitioners' work and rejected it, he asked me to have Manhattan Design try alternative typefaces for
the “Music Television” logotype underneath the giant ‘M.’ He debated, “Maybe that was why it didn’t
work the first time.”” They did, and he approved virtually the original design with a simpler typeface in
the logotype.

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

The concept of fluidity was initially met with resistance by the company’s legal department due to
concerns of trademark protections for every version of the logo; fortunately, the outlined version was
protected. To those who found the dynamic logo incapable of maintaining a lasting visual identity,
Seibert simply said, “Inconsistency will be our consistency”. Because of its fluidity, the logo remained
unchanged for nearly three decades as it morphed into any color or texture as well as animation,
continuously adapting to pop culture logo (see Exhibit 3 for various applications of the dynamic MTV
logo). The idea of refusing a fixed color scheme opened space to experimentation, allowing MTV to
constantly adapt to the trends of the moment. Endless variations of the fat M that had “movement even
as it sits there” were created. When the iconic channel launched four decades ago, it didn’t just change
popular music, it also helped pave the way for a new visual language in advertising and marketing.

Moonwalk Milestones and MTV’s Animation Epoch

Seibert had also been assigned the task of producing a minimum of two animations before the
approaching on-air debut. Animations were expensive and receiving a higher budget was impossible,
but luckily, the solution had been before him all this time. “As it turns out, there had been a guy, Peter
Rosenthal, with a little animation studio in Washington D.C. that had been coming into the office every
day since MTV was announced without an appointment, trying to meet with me. He would be at my
secretary’s desk for hours at a time, but I would never see him, as I was up to my ears in alligators.
Finally, one day, he showed me his stop motion reel.”

With seven weeks to air and a $5,000 budget, Seibert and Rosenthal agreed on a $5,000 price tag
for the 10 second spot that was set to be commissioned in six weeks. The 10-second stop motion
animation ID created by Broadcast Arts – a company that consisted of Rosenthal and his partner Steve
Oaks – was called “Swick”. The 10-second film was made up of nine physical constructions of MTV
logos as illustrated by Frank Olinksy

On Seibert’s agenda was another piece of animation: the top of the hour piece, planned to be a 30-
second voiceover announcing the music of the hour. While brainstorming, Seibert thought to himself,
“This piece is going to play 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, 17,000 times a year, and
then top and bottom of the hour. It’s got to be our piece! We were focused on the idea that we were
doing something that has never been done before, so why don’t we find the most famous piece of
television footage that we can find and just adapt it to our purposes? Seibert turned to his memories of
visiting his mother’s homeland of Bulgaria as a teenager in 1969:

The night of the moonwalk, only one in every 10 Bulgarian families had a TV, and
my mother was urging me to come with the family to a distant uncle’s house who
had a TV. At the time, I was an obnoxious 17-year-old who decided against going,
as I had to finish reading Catcher in the Rye. When I looked out my aunt’s window,
I saw hundreds of people in the streets looking for televisions to see this thing.

I decided that’s what we should do. We should take the first moonwalk and replace
the American flag with an MTV logo. The worst that could happen is that you will
meet children all over the place thinking, when they get their history lesson, why
there is an American flag where the MTV logo belongs.

Seibert learned from his mentor that the National Archives of the Library of Congress had video
footage that was free for Americans to use, which is where he found all of NASA’s video footage, film
footage, and still images. When Seibert shared the NASA idea with his creative team, one of younger
members enthusiastically responded with, “Space is very rock and roll!” In the rebellious era of the
1960s and 70s, rock ‘n’ roll, rooted in anti-establishment sentiments, embraced the symbolism of space
as the ultimate frontier, reflecting a collective cultural desire to challenge norms and explore uncharted

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

territories. Both the moon walk and MTV’s venture into the music video industry captured the
phenomenon of venturing into new territories (see Exhibit 4).

Video Killed the Radio Star

Each new solution also presented a new set of challenges. “Here was the problem: there was the
absence of established shows to promote and the unpredictability of our daily video schedule,” Seibert
noted. “As MTV was a nascent concept, we were still navigating the evolving landscape, trying to clarify
to our audience what exactly we were offering. Its innovation made our day-to-day work and promotion
very difficult. In a nutshell, MTV was TV with no shows. We played about a dozen 3-minute music
videos every hour, each day, all year.”

Seibert knew they had to educate the audience, which at the time thought that MTV would simply
be ‘running rock concerts all day long. With the goal of figuring out how to best educate and grow a
loyal viewership, Seibert turned to the memoir of David Ogilvy, also known as the “Father of
Advertising”. Ogilvy had a commandment that stuck with Seibert: “Successful copywriting makes a
promise.” As a result, MTV’s marketing propositions emerged – 6 promises that helped define MTV:

1. We’re the world’s first video music channel.

2. 24 hours a day.
3. In stereo.
4. Your favorite videos.
5. New music too.
6. We’re the channel you’ve been waiting for.

Rather than promoting individual shows, Seibert and his team worked to establish the identity of
the channel with these devices, giving meaning to the emerging concept of branding. “We need them to
fall in love with MTV,” declared Seibert. The promises and their executions were, according to Seibert,
the most integral component of establishing MTV as a special and distinct venture within the
entertainment industry. The visual and sound design later sprung from the brand promises.

“Fred had taste,” commented his former boss, Bob Pittman, who in addition to being a co-founder
and CEO of MTV Networks went on to be the CEO of AOL Networks, Six Flags Theme Parks, Quantum
Media, Century 21 Real Estate, and iHeartMedia. “Fred was on the cutting edge of where things were
before we got there. He went against conventional wisdom, which was important, because we had no
money; originality was all we had.

Although MTV: Music Television wasn’t the first thematically focused cable channel, MTV was the
first to start envisioning promos as entertainment, in and of themselves. Typically, promos, which
educated the viewer on what was scheduled, functioned as commercials, resulting in a loss of viewership
and decline in ratings. Seibert reflected on what allowed MTV to step away from that status quo:

Most promos were typically a signal to tune out… change the channel… get another beer from
the fridge. But freed from the responsibility of getting a viewer to care about what show was
scheduled next “Thursday night at 8:00 PM,” we could pound our marketing messages home
in a way that encouraged a viewer to stay… enjoy… identify.

We reinforced the viewing decision instead of trying to sell a viewer on watching something
later down the schedule. We spoke an unadorned language that wasn’t ads-sy or artificial.
And in our very own approach, we said “we’re different” to an audience that FELT they were
different from the conventional audiences that watched conventional TV.”

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Maintaining individuality within an industry that had thus far been defined by replication meant
that Seibert faced a lot of pushbacks. When it came to the task of creating an advertising poster, a fellow
MTV employee rejected Seibert’s idea, claiming that it would not work because it did not have Charlie
Daniels the way Epic Records did or push Blondie the way that Rolling Stone magazine was doing.
Knowing the importance of creating a stable personality that could defy the ever-changing trends,
Seibert responded with: “I don’t care what anyone else is doing. By the time we put this poster out,
there’s going to be somebody else that you’ll want on the poster. I only care about one thing: the M
being famous.”

August 1, 1981: The Launch of MTV and a New Era for Television
At exactly 12:01 am on August 1, 1981, MTV made its broadcast debut with the words "Ladies and
gentlemen, rock and roll." As The Buggles’ music video “Video Killed the Radio Start” graced the screens
of television across America, a new era of American culture rolled in. For roughly two decades following
the initial launch, audiences relied on MTV as a gateway to new music, fashion, experimental film, and
visual effects.

The channel was intended for “the big kids, the kind that get turned on by the big rock sound and
the weird assemblages that make it” (see Exhibit 5). Up until then, teenagers, a lucrative audience,
were largely overlooked by television channels that catered to either adults or children. Knowing how
to speak to their audience, MTV drafted pop stars including Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Pete
Townshend, and more into assertive ad campaigns, urging viewers to demand the MTV channel from
their cable operators. As the audience’s hunger for MTV grew, reflecting a large shift in American
television habits, the cable eventually expanded to 79 channels and 53 million subscribers by the end
of the decade.

The live video jockeys (VJs) that hosted the shows, introduced the videos, and curated music video
playlist were integral to MTV’s success. Prior to MTV’s introduction of VJ’s, speaking directly to the
audience was largely confined to the radio scene. MTV’s application of the technique launched a cultural
revolution, and its unexpected success made Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman, Alan Hunter, J.J.
Jackson, and Martha Quinn overnight celebrities as the network's first VJ's. This transformation
planted a seed for the future of the entertainment industry, which had since blossomed on the YouTube
scene — and extended to all other forms of social media.

In MTV’s early days, its programming consisted of basic music videos that were introduced by the
VJs and provided for free by record companies, who in turn received an opportunity to promote their
music. As the record industry recognized MTV’s value as a promotional vehicle, money was invested in
making creative, cutting-edge videos. Some directors, including Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich,
Three Kings) and Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), worked on music videos
before segueing into feature films. In the 1980s, MTV was instrumental in promoting the careers of
performers such as Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince, whose videos played in heavy rotation.

The televisual monoculture of the post-war era gave way to more diverse content. MTV, through
alignment with the music charts, helped to fill a popular cultural gap, especially since it greatly
accelerated the trend for cross-marketing of musical acts and songs with major Hollywood productions.
Prior to MTV, music videos were a niche concept. MTV changed that by turning music videos into an
art form and a marketing tool. For the next decade, MTV largely stayed in its original format before
reality shows dominated its programming.

The Architecture and Branding of Nickelodeon

Despite the essential role Seibert played at MTV, his entrepreneurial hunger for creativity was no
longer being fed by MTV. “I’ve always been a person that’s excited about what I do, about what I like,

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

and if I’m not excited, I move on,” said Seibert. It was April 8th, 1983, when Seibert, who was at the
time vice president of creative services for Warner-Amex, the early name for MTV Networks, quit after
finding his job increasingly support oriented and less entrepreneurial.

Forming Fred/Alan Inc.

Alan Goodman, Seibert’s MTV coworker and soon-to-be business partner, walked out of MTV with
him. Together, they set up Fred/Alan Inc. (see Exhibit 6). “We thought that the name Fred/Alan was
funny, because there was a famous radio comedian named Fred Allen, and even though Allen spelled
his name differently, we figured we were in on our own joke,” laughed Seibert. Fred/Alan Inc. began as
a media branding agency and later transitioned to a full advertising agency, servicing clients such as
Nickelodeon – a partnership that lasted from 1984 to 1992 – and focused on brand, marketing, and
programming consults.

Fred/Alan initially had neither a definitive value proposition nor partnerships; they only had the
plan of becoming some sort of service agency where their entrepreneurial spirits could continue to
thrive. In June 1984, a year into their independent endeavor, Seibert received a phone call from
Pittman, who offered them positions as consultants for both MTV and Nickelodeon. Nickelodeon,
which was losing $10 million a year, had launched in 1979 out of Warner Cable’s interactive QUBE
in Columbus, Ohio and moved to New York with the formulation of the new programming subsidiary
WASEC. Initially, the channel worked on a PBS, no commercials model.

In the 1980s, cable operators faced difficulty selling The Movie Channel subscriptions door-to-door,
but Nickelodeon functioned as a door-opener because it catered to children, was included in the
subscription bundle for no additional cost, and was free from commercials. However, Nielsen (a global
leader in audience insights, data, and analytics) conducted research on Nickelodeon's audience insights
and revealed that, despite Nickelodeon's promising ratings, 44% of all cable homes tuned into
Nickelodeon only once a week and stayed for less than 6 minutes.

“The low-to-nonexistent ratings that came because of even lower programming investment initially
didn’t really matter, as Nick was seen as a loss leader for the billions that could be made by a premium
movie service. By 1984, The Movie Channel had basically failed and was sold to Showtime, and
Nickelodeon had lost today's equivalent of a hundred million dollars, so something had to be done,”
spoke Seibert.

The Nickelodeon Makeover: A New Identity

With the goal of securing Nickelodeon’s position on screens, Seibert and Goodman began working
closely with Geraldine Laybourne – who worked at Nickelodeon from 1980 until 1996 before becoming
the president of Disney-ABC Cable Networks. When Laybourne inherited the top position at
Nickelodeon, the network had the unpopular reputation of being the ‘good for you’ channel. Seibert and
Goodman were asked to step in to figure out how to get kids to actually watch the channel and to boost
the ratings, so they determined that they needed to craft a new identity for the dying channel. Seibert
outlined the following fundamental characteristics he believed were holding Nickelodeon back:

Nickelodeon was a word that meant nothing in the late 20th century and hadn't meant
anything to anyone since about 1915. Nickelodeon was hard to spell, even for an adult. Hard
to say for a kid. The word nickelodeon was also long and didn’t comfortably fit on a television
screen. Why was it a children’s TV channel name?

Nickelodeon kept promoting itself as “fun”, but we were not. Why don’t we just ban the word
fun and instead make promotions that are, indeed, fun?

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

To revive Nickelodeon's ratings, which Seibert joked seemed easy, since “Nickelodeon had no ratings
to speak of, so things could only get better,” Fred/Alan suggested to the management group that
Nickelodeon needed to become a club – the most wonderful kids club ever.

“We had developed a theory at MTV, and the execution of that supposition – that in a crowded media
world you need to tell your story, in any way you can, before you try and convince anyone about your
programming – seemed to work like gangbusters, which set the stage and drove the marketing,
promotion and programming vocabulary that the channel adopted,” declared Seibert. Applying the
MTV mentality to Nickelodeon, Fred/Alan set to work on developing a set of brand promises for the
channel, which eventually became the skeleton around which all promotions were built on. As a result,
Nickelodeon’s 4 marketing promises that helped define the rebranded Nickelodeon emerged:

1. The First Kids Network

2. The Only Network for You
3. Everyday
4. What you want.

At the time, kids-only programming was relegated to Saturday mornings. To revive Nickelodeon's
ratings and transform it into a profitable channel, Fred/Alan created an organized promotion schedule
for Nickelodeon, which had previously been marked as “erratic and irregular.” Seibert largely credited
the solution to his partner: “Alan immediately went to work constructing a “clock,” which was a
schedule of how two minutes and 20 seconds of promotion an hour would work on all 98 hours of
weekly programming. That’s 588 promotional spots a week, an increase of at least 150% for
Nickelodeon.” As a result of the revised promotional schedule, Nickelodeon now had the ability to
charge $500 a spot, enabling it to make 25 million dollars in marketing revenues annually.

From Worst to First: The Power of Strategic Branding

Once the four key promises were outlined, the challenge was to execute the proposed new identity
for Nickelodeon (see Exhibit 7 for the Nickelodeon Logo Handbook). Seibert spoke on the crafting
process:

Crafting an identity for a network is almost like inventing a person. You must decide what
they’ll look like, what they’ll sound like and what they’ll say. And since we had a counter
intuitive philosophy of a visual medium like television – that is, innovative visuals and
programming should leap from the sound- we started to brainstorm as to what Nickelodeon
should sound like. The amazing pictures would follow when animators were inspired by the
music.

Much of Fred/Alan’s contributions to Nickelodeon's rebranding revolved around sound design.

While various ideas on what the sound basis of Nickelodeon should be were tossed in the air, doo wop
music kept coming back up. “The more we talked about it, the more we felt doo wop would be the ideal
sound for a kids’ network. Doo wop developed as street corner singing – people’s music. You didn’t
need expensive electronic studio equipment; you just needed your vocal cords and a desire to make
sound: a natural for kids. Unlike what their big brothers or sisters were listening to on the radio, this
music was just for them,” declared Seibert.

Doo wop, known for its grassroots origins and accessibility, in combination with wacky sound effects
resonated as an ideal sound foundation for Nickelodeon, offering a distinct departure from mainstream
radio music and appealing directly to its young audience. Playing with the word Nickelodeon musically
turned into the ultimate audio logo – a logo “as distinctive and infectious as a jingle, without any
offensive sloganeering attached. Just pure lively, good-time doo wop.”

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Witnessing the impact of their creative efforts, Seibert recalled: “I’ll never forget the time I was
walking down Tenth Avenue in Manhattan; it was the spring of 1985. On the street were these little girls
jumping rope and keeping time singing “Nick-Nick-Nick-Nick-Nick-Nick-Nick-Nick-Nickelodeon.”
The unexpected encounter encapsulated the tangible impact of their creative endeavor, serving as a
testament to the channel's newfound resonance with its audience. From that moment onward, Seibert
and his team remained dedicated to managing the creative process that fueled Nickelodeon's enduring
success for the next decade.

Despite facing immense challenges, Nickelodeon experienced an unprecedented turnaround, going

from the bottom of the rankings to the very top within six months. In June 1984, the channel languished
in 30th place among cable networks, but by January 1985, it claimed the coveted position as the number
one rated cable network. This meteoric rise to success was achieved without altering the programming
itself, underscoring the profound impact of Seibert and his team's strategic branding and marketing
initiatives, a strategy that cemented Nickelodeon’s status as a beloved cultural icon.

The Birth of Iconic Network Cartoon Network

Finding that the success of the agency was forcing them into more mundane activities, Seibert and
Alan decided to dissolve the Fred/Alan business in February of 1992. In that same month, Turner
Broadcasting System, Inc. — an American television and media conglomerate founded by Ted Turner
— had announced its plans to launch The Cartoon Network with 24/7 cartoons as an outlet for its
animation library.

Hanna-Barbera, an American animation studio and production company was active from 1957
until its absorption by Warner Bros. Animation in 2001, had created numerous hit shows, including
The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, and Scooby Doo, Where Are You! was intended to produce programming
for The Cartoon Network. However, at the turn of the 90s, the once-dominant cartoon factory was
creatively exhausted, as it had not produced a hit since its 1981 TV series The Smurfs.

While out for dinner one night with Scott Sassa, who had recently become president of Turner’s
entertainment division, Seibert was offered the presidency of the Hanna-Barbera animation studio.
“Although Hanna-Barbera was a dead brand at the time, I was really excited, because I had grown up
watching the Huckleberry Hound Show, Quick Draw McGraw, The Flintstones, and Yogi Bear,” said
Seibert.

Reviving the Legacy

“I walked into the studio as an executive who had no idea what a cartoon studio really was. It was
already a very down era for Hanna-Barbera, as Jean MacCurdy, a former Hanna-Barbera executive, left
to become president of Warner Bros. Animation in 1989 and took a significant amount of talent from
Hanna-Barbera with her. Simultaneously, I got the message from the head of the corporation that I had
to lay off dozens of people and get the studio to break even within three years,” recalled Seibert.

Continuing the trajectory of not changing the essence of a company, but rather reformatting it to fit
the screens of evolving times, Seibert asked himself the following questions: “What was the institution
that Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna built in 1957? What was it that made it great? What were the points-
of-view they brought to their work? And what were the ways they brought excitement to their employees
enabling them to do great work and create those classic television heroes like The Flintstones and
Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear?”

Seibert realized that, while William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had spent their time producing
beloved cartoons, the image of Hanna-Barbera was left up to competitors to define. At the time, Warner
Bros, with launches such as Tiny Toons Adventures, Animaniacs, and Batman, and Disney, with

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

DuckTales, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers, and Goof Troop, were leading the children’s TV animation
industry. However, Seibert noted that Hanna-Barbera, throughout its history, had always attracted
amazing talent, so he applied that as his guiding foundation for bringing Hanna-Barbera back to life.
Seibert’s search for visionaries and young, strong-minded animators had followed him from MTV to
Nickelodeon and now to Hanna-Barbera. His goal was to attract hip young animators to Cartoon
Network’s doors.

“Immediately after arriving, I told my immediate supervisor, Turner Entertainment President, Scott
Sassa, and Jed Simmons about my idea for shorts. I wanted to make about 50 shorts with animation
directors from both inside and outside the studio personnel, and that, unlike the previous policy at
Hanna-Barbera, the underlying IP rights would stay with the shorts’ creators, unless we chose to
purchase those rights separately to go to full series production,” Seibert shared his pitch.

However, Seibert’s idea was immediately met with rejection by Turner, as the shared concept across
the TV industry was that paying for a short would have also had to translate into the studio owning
everything related to it, including the underlying IP. In addition to playing reruns of the existing 7,000+
short cartoons of programming content on Turner’s TBS Superstation and TNT (Turner Network
Television), Turner wanted to have Cartoon Network create new content. “We were also expected to
continue with the core business model of Hanna-Barbera, which was selling to networks. Turner had a
very good syndication department, because we owned the MGM library, which owned an extensive film
library. What I proposed was to stop doing live action shows and instead go back to our roots – crafting
funny cartoons that kids loved,” shared Seibert.

Since his proposal for creating 50 shorts continued to be met with rejection, Seibert was forced into
developing the series the traditional route: listening to pitches that came directly through the
development staff. “I was skeptical of the development group, which consisted of a dozen writers, who
had been told the mission was to develop everything in-house, preferably from their own ideas and
writing,” commented Seibert.

Hanna-Barbera’s development group managed to launch two new shows into production: SWAT
Kats: The Radical Squadron, created by two brothers from Montreal, Yvon and Christian Tremblay,
and Two Stupid Dogs, which was created by 23-year-old Donovan Cook. Hanna-Barbera immediately
began producing the two shows, distributing them on Cartoon Network, TBS, and TNT, as well as in
syndication – a risky move within such a fragmented marketplace. In the early 90s, the active outlets
for animation were expanding to include cable, broadcast syndication, network television, international
syndication, and international cable networks. Hanna-Barbera wasn’t fully prepared to promote
original cartoon shows yet, leading to major financial losses.

The three-year deadline was approaching, so Seibert knew that he needed to develop a new approach
to convince Turner to move forward with the original shorts idea, creating multiple pilots for new shows
within the shorts series.

Pilots on the Run: What a Cartoon!

“Now, the problem was that we’d spent our entire production budget and had no hits to show for it,
so I had to return to Ted and convince – beg – for another shot… for some more money,” expressed
Seibert. Capitalizing off the idea that the 48 shorts would have yielded 96 press opportunities ((1)
during announcement of a production and (2) at press around the actual launch of a program), Seibert
spoke of the opportunity for profitability with Ted. Press announcements of original programming
appealed to cable operators who hadn’t yet signed up for The Cartoon Network. “Numerical arithmetic
could win an argument with Ted, so I came up with a numbers story. When Turner reminded me that I
had just blown $10 million dollars on two failed series, I responded with, “Well don’t you think that if I

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

tried something 48 times, I could get it right once? We only need one hit to break out, make a series,
turn a profit.”

As a result of Seibert’s statistical vision appealing to Turner’s entrepreneurial self, What a Cartoon!
(see Exhibit 8) was born. “We agreed that when we made shorts, we’d keep an approximately two-year
option on the IP and own the actual short we produced in perpetuity. That way, the company could have
a real chance to exploit whatever it had made, one way or another,” Seibert reflected on coming to an
agreement with Turner. Launched on February 20, 1995, What a Cartoon! was an American animated
anthology series created by Seibert for Cartoon Network. From 5,000 people pitching cartoons, 48 were
chosen. Three of the 7-minute cartoons were then paired together into a half hour episode. The project
intended to return creative power to animators and artists by recreating the atmospheres that spawned
the iconic cartoon characters of the mid-20th century.

“I was overwhelmed by the response from the creative community. Because of the two years of
almost constant meetings with various artists and writers, crews from other studios, and independent
filmmakers from the US and abroad, I learned that the community had been waiting for a project like
What a Cartoon! for a long time,” reflected Seibert. Each of the shorts mirrored the structure of a
theatrical carton, with each film being based on an original storyboard drawn and written by its artists
or creator. Reflecting on the talented visionaries, Seibert shared, “We worked with people who were
both 70 years old and 20 years old. We turned on its head the perception the people in the community
had of us.”

The revival era for television animation served as a launching pad for the following Cartoon Network
animated television series:

Courage the Cowardly Dog, created by John R. Dilworth

Cow and Chicken, created by David Feiss
Dexter’s Laboratory, created by Genndy Tartakovsky
I Am Weasel, created by David Feiss
Johnny Bravo, created by Van Partible
The Powerpuff Girls, created by Craig McCracken

Each of the 48 stand-alone cartoons had their own creator, team, and voice. The What a Cartoon!
project, which was officially promoted as World Premiere Toons by Cartoon Network, and its spin-offs
brought Cartoon Network more commercial and critical success, and the network became an animation
industry leader as the 1990s drew to a close.

Forging Cultural Legacies: A Lasting Impact

Seibert left Hanna-Barbera in late 1996 (due to the TBS merger with Time Warner, with the Hanna-
Barbera studios being absorbed into Warner Bros) to open his own studio, Frederator Studios. At
Frederator Studios, he continued in the tradition of surfacing new talent, characters, and series with
similar shorts incubators for Nickelodeon called Oh Yeah! Cartoons. Butch Hartman’s The Fairly Odd
Parents was the first Nickelodeon show to see its start in Frederator Studios’ Oh Yeah! Cartoons
anthology. Adventure Time, also produced by Frederator Studios, was first created as a short for
Nickelodeon in 2005, but the series later found a home at Cartoon Network. Seibert’s streaming video
venture in the 2000s, under the name of Channel Frederator, was largely influenced by his time in cable
and animation, contributed to an innovative area of creation: multi-channel networks (MCN).

In retrospect, the narratives of MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network served as compelling
chronicles of how innovation, entrepreneurial spirit, and strategic branding revolutionized an entire
industry. Through MTV's disruptive approach to music television, Nickelodeon's transformation last to

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

first, and Cartoon Network's embrace of original animation, Seibert and collaborators reshaped the
fabric of entertainment.

By defying conventional wisdom, they tapped into the zeitgeist of their respective eras, resonating
with audiences in profound ways. These endeavors were not merely about selling products or services;
they were about crafting identities and fostering communities. Branding was applied not just as a
marketing tool, but also as a means of shaping cultural narratives and forging emotional connections
with viewers. Regarding his trailblazing approach to MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network, Fred
shared:

Innovation, cultural disruption, and breaking conventions are interesting things. My

observation is that folks who try to be disruptors rarely actually are. They might have an
effect around the edges, but usually that's it.

In my case, all the work I've been involved with tends to be looking for solutions to problems,
or getting involved with creative projects that seem exciting or interesting or fun, or all the
above. Hopefully, they end up being good – or better than that –and, if we're lucky, they start
a new thread of others with their exciting or interesting or fun follow ups. Innovative?
Occasionally. Disruptive? Sometimes. Successful? I can always dream.

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Exhibit 1: Original Idea for MTV Logo Made to Resemble New York Style Graffiti

Source: Fred Seibert Flickr Archive

Exhibit 2: Evolution of the MTV Logo

Source: FredSeibert.com

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Exhibit 3: Various applications of the fluid MTV logo

Source: Fred Seibert Flickr Archive

Exhibit 4: MTV Moon Flag

Source: Fred Seibert Flickr Archive

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Exhibit 5: “You can run, but you can’t hide.” MTV Advertisement (1991)

Source: Fred Seibert Flickr Archive

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Exhibit 6: Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman of Fred/Alan Inc.

Source: Fred Seibert Flickr Archive

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Exhibit 7: The Nickelodeon Logo Handbook

Pages from the book on Nickelodeon logo logic as designed by Tom Corey & Scott Nash and developed by
Alan Goodman & Fred Seibert, Fred/Alan Inc.

Source: Fred Seibert Flickr Archive

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Fred Seibert: The Visionary Who Shaped MTV, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network

Exhibit 8: What a Cartoon!

Source: Fred Seibert Flickr Archive

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