[4] In 1980, Warner-Amex hired Cyril M. Schneider to be the president of the Nickelodeon network, which made its national debut less than a year earlier.
Despite introducing popular programs such as You Can't Do That on Television to the lineup in 1981, Nickelodeon operated at a loss of $10 million dollars, and at one point had the lowest number of viewers compared to other cable channels by 1984.
In 1983, Bob Pittman was made head of MTV Networks and Schneider was not comfortable with his "idiotic" approach to "home-based" television.
Her programming approach, which made a point of talking to children as equals, built the tiny cable network, which had only five employees in 1980, into an $8 billion business.
Under his leadership, Nickelodeon (which, under his watch, included such animated series as SpongeBob SquarePants, Danny Phantom, The Fairly OddParents, Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Angry Beavers, Catscratch, and Hey Arnold!)
[10] In 2004, the position of president of Nickelodeon Television was created for Zarghami, where she oversaw production and development for the network, along with marketing, programming and creativity.