The content of children in streaming is king while media societies continue the profits

In the battle between streaming services to capture and keep subscribers, children’s programs like “Cocomelon” and “Bluey” become powerful tools to help win the war.

Customer retention has proven to be one of the greatest obstacles in streaming. When Netflix Subscribers’ losses said in 2022, he sent a training effect through industry and media companies began to look at advertising and other commercial models to focus on profitability.

Meanwhile, companies like Discovery Warner Bros. And Disney expressed the need for quality content to stimulate the growth of subscribers. Programming for children offers a single value proposition for streaming equation: it is cheaper and has more longevity than other forms of content.

“The contents of children leads to a huge amount of engagement because the children watch it again and again.

Mayer has said that reducing the unsubscribe – industry jargon for customer losses – is the most important factor in improving the economy of streaming services, even more than obtaining new subscribers or generating income from these customers.

“If you have the unsubscribe, you lose subscribers, your first line decreases. You must spend dollars in marketing to reconstruct, either to rebroadcast the lost subscribers, or to find new ones,” said Mayer.

Children tend to repeat by watching shows and films, and this manifests in data. When there was initially only one “Cocomelon” season on Netflix, the children watched the same episodes several times, said Brian Fuhrer, vice-president of the product strategy and enlightened leadership in Nielsen.

The 154 episodes of the Australian animated series “Bluey”, which broadcasts on Disney +, saw more than 25 billion minutes in the first half of 2025, according to a report by Nielsen published in July.

Children’s films in general led both the box office and were many most broadcast titles this year, according to Nielsen. Disney’s “Moana” is the most broadcast film in history and the suite, “Moana 2”, had 7.2 billion minutes of viewing since its release on Disney + in March, by Nielsen.

Live and successful television series are often credited to attract the most public and conduct short -term subscribers for streamers, but services that include solid children’s content portfolios offer parents a reason to stick to longer -term subscriptions, analysts and industry experts said in CNBC.

A report on video trends in the fourth quarter of Tivo revealed that on nearly 4,500 respondents in the survey in the United States and Canada, those who have children use 13.6 services against 8.2 for those who do not. Overall, the 2024 fourth quarter report revealed that respondents had an average of 9.9 services, down from 11.1 the previous year. Tivo’s report revealed that people abandon streaming applications due to lack of use rather than higher prices.

Meanwhile, children at the school home during the summer have helped increase both streaming and the use of television in June, according to a recent report from Nielsen. The total use of television among 6 to 17 year olds increased by 27% compared to the previous month, and streaming represented 66% of their total time spent with television in June.

The strategy for media companies varies when it comes to using children’s content as a retention tool. Disney, Overall And Netflix are part of the streaming services with deep libraries of content for children. WBD, however, fell from its kind, in particular with its decision to give up the streaming rights of “Sesame Street”.

The new season of the emblematic children’s program will be released on Netflix later this year, with two additional seasons to follow. Meanwhile, the new episodes “Sesame Street” will also be available on PBS Kids and its YouTube channel.

Netflix said the contents of children and family represents 15% of the company’s total visualization.

Part of the broader media strategy has also meant to unite its forces with the greatest competitor in the traditional media industry – AlphabetYouTube.

Even Netflix, the streaming mastodon that has turned the media industry upset, faces the reality that the YouTube social media platform dominates streaming on the TV screen.

YouTube constantly draws the highest television show from all streaming platforms, according to Nielsen. In June, YouTube represented 12.8% of the global streaming on the TV, exceeding Netflix and Disney +, Nielsen reported. In total, the streaming broadcast show has exceeded broadcasting and cable television.

“I would say that YouTube is part of everyone’s media strategy,” said Andy Heyward, longtime media director of the Kartoon Studios television industry. “More children consume YouTube than anything else. But there are so many things there that you have very, very unique to rise above.”

The YouTube strategy was once a reflection afterwards for many media societies, but that has since changed, according to Alexia Raven, who led generational research as a former manager at Warner Bros. Discovery and has since co -founded the Research and Strategy Company Maverix Insights.

“If you are not on YouTube, it’s like you don’t exist for children,” said Raven. “This is where the eyeballs are.”

In response, traditional media companies are increasingly working “as close partners” with YouTube – creating and organizing YouTube channels with specific content clips and television networks, and even creation of emissions only for the platform, said Katie Kurtz, the world chief of young people and learning in YouTube.

“I think we certainly know that some partners consider YouTube as the engine of discovery. They want to make sure they meet users where they are, and therefore they are on YouTube to connect with the public,” said Kurtz.

The content that Disney produces for YouTube serves to complete its long-form series on Disney + and a more in-depth commitment with its characters and stories, a Disney spokesman at CNBC told.

Paramount attributes to its programming of the children’s library as helping to establish Paramount + as one of the fastest growing streaming services, according to a spokesperson – a large part of which comes from the Nickelodeon cable television network. Franchises like “Paw Patrol”, “Spongebob Squarepants” and “Dora the Explorer” were particularly successful.

Even with this depth in the programming of children, paramount earlier this year published the original animated series, “Kid Cowboy”, exclusively on YouTube.

“We also know that many of our partners are not only building large YouTube channels. They also think of building a very large generation of characters, and some of them involve being YouTube first,” said Kurtz, calling “Kid Cowboy” as an example.

Meanwhile, traditional media societies are also turned to YouTube for new forms of content to be added to their platform. In recent years, content manufacturers that have started on YouTube have signed license agreements with the best streaming services.

“We want to be in business with the best creatives on the planet, no matter where they come from,” the Netflix co-PDG said, the Sarandos when the results of Thursday with investors.

“Cocomelon” stands out in particular.

The animated series is from YouTube and still achieves a large part of its viewers, but when Netflix acquired a subset of its content in 2020, it was a boost for the Netflix audience.

He appeared in the list of the 10 best titles acquired from Nielsen in total 179 times, with 155 consecutive appearances on the ranking. However, it was presented for the last time on the list in September 2024.

Despite its slowdown in the audience, “Cocomelon” managed to catch a new house streaming with Disney + this year, according to people familiar with the issue that refused to speak publicly about private negotiations. Disney Netflix overbidding for the rights of the program from 2027 and Netflix has refrained from submitting a higher offer, people said. Netflix refused to renew its “Cocomelon” license due to a drop in the hearing, one of the people said.

Netflix saw the hours spent visualizing “cocomelon” decrease almost 60% from the beginning of 2023 – when it started to publish engagement data – at the end of 2024.

A Disney spokesperson said that “Cocomelon” continues to be a first-class destination for preschool children, adding that the show is transparent in its preschool ecosystem and supports engagement and retention with its young audience, which is a key engine of the health of the platform.

Despite the abandonment of “Cocomelon”, Netflix still invests in the content of children. Earlier this year, Netflix added “Ms. Rachel” content, which schedule from a Youtube content of content for the toddler and preschool of the same name, the channel of which has nearly 16 million subscribers.

The series is in the top 10 of Netflix’s most watched “shows” for 17 weeks, depending on the company.

“There are creators on YouTube like Ms. Rachel who is very suitable,” said Sarandos during Thursday’s call. “If you have just seen the engagement report, she had 53 million views in the first half of 2025 on Netflix. She therefore works clearly on Netflix.”