More kids seem to be watching YouTube, and streaming services have taken notice.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Nielsen data revealed that Netflix’s share of U.S. streaming viewership by 2-to 11-year-olds dropped to 21% in September — a 4% drop from the 25% the streamer had in 2021. In comparison, YouTube’s viewership in the same age bracket was 33% in September — up from 29.4% in 2021.
As a result, more streaming services are looking at opportunities to put their kids content on YouTube as the interest in short-form content grows.
“These viewers are watching on their iPads or on other platforms that have moved to shorter and shorter segments, and it’s a real issue for the streamers,” Michael Hirsh, co-founder of WOW Unlimited Media told The Wall Street Journal.
For example, Spin Master — a Toronto-based toy, games and kids-TV company — released its film Unicorn Academy on Roblox in September and then on Netflix two months later, according to the report. In October, Spin Master released the first half of Unicorn Academy on its YouTube channel while Netflix released the second half on its own channel.
In addition, Netflix and Moonbug, the creators behind the animated hit series CoComelon, struck a deal to release the first episode of CoComelon Lane, a spinoff series, on YouTube a week before it came to Netflix, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Netflix also allowed Sony to show episodes and clips from the streamer’s preschool series, The Creature Cases, on a YouTube channel.
In addition, attracting younger viewers could mean a household is more likely to keep subscribing to a service.
Tom Ascheim, a former Disney children’s programming executive who joined Warner in 2020, told The Wall Street Journal that data indicated households with children watch more content and are less likely to churn, or cancel a service.
With kids being an important market, it’s likely we could see more deals like this between streamers and YouTube.