I know Nic got into the live action shows a while back. They started going for the "tween" audience, which is the kids inbetween kids and teenagers. It turned out to be a solid audience for them. Actually, Nic was copying Disney Channel, which decided the live action shows were less expensive than the animated ones.
Cartoon Network used to experiment showing movies which were live action but had computer generated "animation" for the special effects, calling them animated. But now they're drifting into programs which cannot be considered animated at all.
They are becoming more of a kids network.