Nickelodeon revival
In September 2010, Rainbow S.p.A. announced they had entered into a worldwide broadcast and production deal with Nickelodeon that would see the broadcaster air the series in several territories, alongside co-producing and developing seasons 5 and 6 with them, effectively reviving the series. Nickelodeon Consumer Products also secured merchandising rights to the revival in some regions, including the United States. Viacom would finance and staff the revived series, dividing production between Viacom's Nickelodeon Animation Studio in the United States and Rainbow S.p.A. in Italy.
In February 2011, Nickelodeon's parent company Viacom acquired a 30% stake in Rainbow S.p.A. for €62 million (equivalent to US$83 million). Viacom originally planned to buy out the entire Rainbow studio, but wanted to keep Iginio Straffi at the helm, leaving Straffi with 70%.
The revived series began with four special episodes that summarize the first two seasons of the original show, followed by redubbed versions of the third and fourth seasons and the fifth, sixth, and seventh seasons. As the production team was divided between two countries, Nickelodeon released a statement commenting on how Winx Club was an unusual production for the company: "It's not our usual practice to co-produce cartoons; we make them by ourselves. But we strongly believe in Winx." Winx Club was officially inducted into Nickelodeon's franchise of Nicktoons, a brand that encompasses original animated productions created for the network. On each episode of the revived series, Nickelodeon approved scripts and all phases of animation. Nickelodeon brought on some of its long-time staff members, such as creative director Janice Burgess, and writers Sascha Paladino, Adam Peltzman, and Carin Greenberg.
On 7 April 2014, Rainbow and Nickelodeon announced their continuing partnership on the seventh season of Winx Club, with a planned premiere date of 2015. Straffi said of the season: "It will be a privilege to partner once more with Nickelodeon on this." During production, Rainbow was undergoing a multimillion-euro financial loss due to the box-office failure of its 2012 film Gladiators of Rome. They subsequently decided to cut costs on Winx Club, its most expensive show. The CGI-animated segments and California voice cast from the previous two seasons were deemed too costly to continue using for the seventh season. As with the previous two seasons, the copyright to the seventh season is co-owned by Rainbow and Viacom. The first episode aired on 22 June 2015, on Nickelodeon in Asia, followed by its American broadcast on the Nick Jr. Channel on 10 January 2016.
The president of Nickelodeon International, Pierluigi Gazzolo, was responsible for arranging the co-production partnership and became a member of Rainbow's board of directors. In addition to financing the television series, Viacom provided the resources necessary to produce a third Winx film. In 2019, Iginio Straffi commented on the two studios' near-decade of continued work together, saying that "the know-how of Rainbow and the know-how of Nickelodeon are very complementary; the sensibilities of the Americans, with our European touch." Winx Club opened the opportunity for Nickelodeon and Rainbow to collaborate on more co-productions, including various pilots from 2014 onward and Club 57 in 2019.
The eighth season of the series was not produced immediately after the seventh. It followed a multiple-year hiatus and was not made as a direct continuation of the previous season. At Iginio Straffi's decision, season 8 was heavily retooled to appeal to a preschool target audience.
For season 8, Rainbow's creative team restyled the characters to appear younger, hoping to increase the appeal toward preschoolers. The plot lines were simplified so that they could be understood by a younger audience. Most of the show's longtime crew members were not called back to work on this season, including art director Simone Borselli, who had designed the series' characters from season 1 to 7, and singer Elisa Rosselli, who had performed a majority of the songs. In another change from previous seasons, season 8 was the first since season 4 to be solely produced by Rainbow, with Nickelodeon's American team serving as consultants rather than directly overseeing the episodes. This was due to the broadcaster focusing on another co-production with Rainbow – Club 57. Season 8 was also the first-ever season without the involvement of Rai Fiction.
Straffi made the decision to shift the show's intended audience after years of gradually aiming toward a younger demographic. In a 2019 interview, he explained that decreasing viewership from older viewers and an increased audience of young children made this change a necessity. He elaborated that "the fans of the previous Winx Club say on social media that the new seasons are childish, but they don't know that we had to do that." Straffi stepped away from the series at this time and shifted his focus to live-action projects aimed at older audiences: Nickelodeon's Club 57 and Fate: The Winx Saga. Straffi explained that "the things we had to tone down [in season 8] have been emphasized in the live action–the relationships, the fights, the love stories." He added that he hoped that Fate will satisfy the "20-year-olds who still like to watch Winx."
