But with Disney and Nick, I believe you're confusing the age of their sitcom stars with the age of their audience. ( Its true, they used to try selling preteens to preteens. But now they sell teens to preteens; or at least some sitcom fantasy of teendom without any difficulties.

The thing is, Nick recently discovered, to its surprise, something that has been true for a while now: some of its popular shows about teens designed for a tween demographic have managed to capture a sizable adult audience, the best example being iCarly, due to its likable but flawed characters, witty scripts, and enjoyably whacky situations. For this reason, the series has been given a larger lifespan than is typical for even its popular shows, and in a fairly bold move, it moved iCarly's rating system out of the "kiddie rating system," changing it from a TV-Y7 rating to a TV-G rating. How this will affect future popular shows on Nick may prove interesting.