A kid's-eye view of the inauguration

Lily Collins will cover the presidential inauguration next month for Nickelodeon. (FILE/ASSOCIATED PRESS)

NEW YORK - Nickelodeon TV, the children's network, is getting ready to cover its first presidential inauguration.

Young reporters Lily Collins, rocker Phil Collins's daughter, and J.J. (the network would not release his last name) will be in Washington on Jan. 20 to show Barack Obama's inauguration from a pint-size perspective.

Throughout the presidential campaign, Nickelodeon found that interest among its young viewers matched that of the adults. Nick's own online "election" had 2.2 million children voting, with kids supporting Obama over John McCain (51 percent to 49 percent) in a closer margin than the real election.

"We decided to carry it through so that kids would have the full experience of the presidential election," said Marva Smalls, executive vice president of public affairs at Nickelodeon.

The coverage will show up during commercial breaks and, most prominently, during the periods between regular shows in prime time. Nick will offer a retrospective of past presidents taking the oath of office and interviews with young people about Obama's election and his inaugural address.

Nick won't cover the speech live, but will take excerpts shortly after it is done from news coverage and package it for its viewers.

"We can't go live in the same way the networks are going live but it will feel the same way to kids," Smalls said.

The station's young viewers are particularly interested in the process because Barack and Michelle Obama's daughters, Malia and Sasha, are squarely in Nick's demographic, she said.

Nick reporters covered the primary this year for the first time (another online poll found kids selecting Obama and McCain as the nominees before Super Tuesday) and went to the Democratic and Republican party conventions. Republicans didn't allow Nick TV reporters on their convention floor; the Democrats did. ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAG, whose leaders are pushing members for a strike authorization next month, still represents performers on 97 percent of scripted prime-time series, according to union officials. But that hold may have loosened a bit this week, when two major studios threatened to put their upcoming scripted pilots under an existing contract with SAG's rival performers union, the American Federation of Radio & Television Artists.

Twentieth Century Fox Television said in a statement that it was "considering shooting its spring pilots" under AFTRA. And Warner Bros. Television Group cited the "uncertainties created by a potential SAG strike" and said it was likewise "considering all of its options," including shooting shows under an AFTRA deal.

There's obviously saber-rattling here. The studio brass is getting increasingly irked that the SAG leadership won't bend from its pro-strike stance. So the moguls decided to unload a cannonball or two over SAG's bow.

While AFTRA was the dominant union in television's early days, SAG made great inroads since the early 1980s, when producers began striving for a feature-like look on dramas such as "Hill Street Blues." The unions periodically have weighed a merger, although nothing has come of such overtures.

LOS ANGELES TIMES