Little Kid TV, Big Money: How Children’s Shows Became Streaming’s Most Valuable Asset

One of the biggest hurdles that streaming services face in their efforts to maintain profitability is retaining customers, CNBC reports. In an effort to offset the cash losses that come with subscriber loss, services have employed a number of different strategies, from upping advertising opportunities to putting out better content.

Recently, they’ve discovered a better, more sustainable solution: children’s programming.

“Kids’ content drives a huge amount of engagement because kids watch it over and over and over and over. They never tire of it,” said Kevin Mayer, co-CEO of Candle Media. Candle Media owns Moonbug, which distributes popular series like “CoComelon” and “Blippi.”

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The data backs this up. Nielsen Senior Vice President of Product Strategy and Thought Leadership Brian Fuhrer told CNBC that when there was only one season of “CoComelon,” kids would watch the same episode over and over. Additionally, Disney+’s “Bluey,” which has 154 episodes, had been streamed 25 billion minutes as of July 14, according to a Nielsen report.

Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX), which acquired the rights to past seasons and new episodes of “Sesame Street” and “Peppa Pig” in May, has reported that kids and family content represents 15% of its total viewing.

However, many streaming services are learning that having this content on their platforms isn’t enough.

“If you’re not on YouTube, it’s like you don’t exist for kids,” Maverix Insights co-founder Alexia Raven said. “That’s where the eyeballs are.”

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Andy Heyward, CEO of Kartoon Studios (NYSE:TOON), agrees. “I would say YouTube is part of everybody’s media strategy. More kids are consuming YouTube than anything else. But there’s so much stuff on there that you have to be very, very unique to rise above.”

Many streaming services are now working in tandem with YouTube, curating channels with clips from specific series and even creating shows exclusively for the platform.

“I think we certainly know that some partners think of YouTube as the engine of discoverability. They want to make sure they’re meeting users where they are, and so they are on YouTube as a way of connecting with audiences,” YouTube’s global head of youth and learning, Katie Kurtz, told CNBC. “We also know that a lot of our partners are not really just building large YouTube channels. They are also thinking about building a really great next generation of characters, and some of that involves being YouTube first.”

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Paramount+, which attributes much of its success to its deep library of kids’ series, is a perfect example of this. Earlier this year, it launched original animated series “Kid Cowboy” exclusively on YouTube.

Other companies are doing the opposite, and scouring YouTube for original content to add to their existing platforms.

Netflix, for example, acquired the YouTube original “CoComelon” in 2020 and saw a huge jump in viewership thanks to the series. The show has since moved to Disney+, but Netflix is hoping to repeat the magic with new “Ms. Rachel” content.

So far, it’s a strategy that seems to be working. In Netflix’s Q2 2025 earnings call, co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that “Ms. Rachel” content had garnered some 53 million views so far this year.

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