The Family Dog Gets His Day on Nick at Nite With the First Annual Worldwide Fido Awards Premiering on Sunday & Monday July 27 & 28 at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT)

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LOS ANGELES, May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time ever, Nick at Nite will give dog owners everywhere the chance to showcase the unique charms of their canine companions by entering them online as contestants for The First Annual Worldwide Fido Awards premiering on Sunday, July 27, and Monday, July 28, 9-10 p.m. (ET/PT). The competition kicks off on May 19, when viewers can upload videos of their dogs to the popular online dog video community site www.WorldwideFido.com, created by digital entertainment studio Worldwide Biggies, to compete in six categories and vote online for their top picks. The contest culminates in a two-night television event that will reveal the winners in each category and ultimately the 2008 Worldwide Fido Award for best in show. The pooch fest will also feature canine friendly celebrities and their four-legged best friends.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080506/NYTU065 )

The inaugural multi-platform Worldwide Fido Awards will launch with online voting from May 19 to July 12 to determine the finalists in six categories: "Cutest Dog," "Best Dressed," "Best Voice," "Most Outrageous," "Best Trick" and "Dog/Owner Look-Alike." Canine candidates in each will be narrowed down to one finalist who will debut as the category winner on night one of the awards. This first hour will showcase the personality of the finalists, who will then compete the following evening in a one-hour live results show in which one lucky pooch will be crowned the 2008's Worldwide Fido winner. The live broadcast will also feature honorable mentions and a special "hero dog" award.

"This truly is the first award show of its kind," said Marjorie Cohn, Executive Vice President, Original Programming and Development, Nickelodeon. "People are just crazy in love with their dogs, and pet videos are the second most watched videos on the Internet. A special programming event which showcases this user-generated content to celebrate the family dog is a perfect fit for Nick at Nite."

Albie Hecht, CEO of Worldwide Biggies and executive producer of The Worldwide Fido Awards, added, "The Worldwide Fido Awards are for all dogs, from the family dog and mutts, to crossbreeds and half-breeds. It is truly a tail-wagging, dog-friendly extravaganza, and we could not be happier than to partner with Nick at Nite for this family event. This special enables us to build upon the success we've had on the web and extend the brand to television."

About Worldwide Biggies

Created by renowned children's and family hit maker Albie Hecht, Worldwide Biggies, is a new digital entertainment studio creating web-based intellectual properties for kids, families and young adults that are designed for additional distribution in the film, TV and licensing arenas. Worldwide Biggies launched its first multi-platform hit on Nickelodeon and Nick.com last year with The Naked Brothers Band and has produced the Video Game Awards on Spike TV, which Hecht created during his tenure as the network's president.

In addition to Worldwide Fido (www.worldwidefido.com) a website dedicated to user-submitted videos of dogs, Worldwide Biggies has partnered with TMZ.com on Star vs. Star (www.starvsstar.com), an online celebrity fan community that features a celebrity fantasy league, a weekly video webcast and amazing Star Card artwork, and has launched the humorous webisode series MoCap, LLC -- a mockumentary of a video game motion capture studio. Worldwide Biggies' affiliated non-profit Shine Global was nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category this year for War/Dance, a documentary set against the backdrop ofUganda's 20-year civil war. This June, the company is gearing up for the highly anticipated launch of The Princess Bride Game (www.princessbridegame.com), the first-ever downloadable video game based on the classic film.

Nick at Nite is Nickelodeon's nighttime programming block that features popular hit family comedies including the Emmy Award-winning series Home Improvement, George Lopez, Growing Pains, America's Funniest Home Videos and The Fresh Prince ofBel-Air, as well as Roseanne, one of the most talked about and celebrated sitcoms in television history. Nickelodeon, now in its 29th year, is the number-one entertainment brand for kids. It has built a diverse, global business by putting kids first in everything it does. The company includes television programming and production inthe United States and around the world, plus consumer products, online, recreation, books, magazines and feature films. Nickelodeon's U.S. television network is seen in more than 96 million households and has been the number-one-rated basic cable network for more than 13 consecutive years. Nickelodeon and all related titles, characters and logos are trademarks of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA, VIA.B).

SOURCE Nickelodeon

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The Family Dog Gets His Day on Nick at Nite With the First Annual Worldwide Fido Awards Premiering on Sunday & Monday July 27 & 28 at 9:00 p.m. (ET/PT)