Is YouTube’s Dominance Leading Streamers to Pull Back on Kids Content?
Is YouTube’s Dominance Leading Streamers to Pull Back on Kids Content?
Warner Bros. Discovery recently shut down its kids streamer Boomerang, which could be an indication that the company is ceding younger viewership to YouTube.
Summer is a good time for streaming, as Nielsen’s ratings continue to prove. The esteemed analytics service released its monthly “The Gauge” report this week, showing that in July streaming once again reached a new record of total TV viewership at 41.4%. At the top of the heap is YouTube, which accounted for more TV time than any other streaming service, including Netflix, Hulu, Max, and every other major subscription streamer. YouTube eclipsed 10% of total viewing for the first time and is especially popular with kids, and that could account for why so many streamers are changing the way they offer kids content.
Key Details:
- YouTube accounted for 10.4% of all TV watched in July.
- Surveys show that younger generations increasingly prefer platforms like YouTube to subscription streamers.
- Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, and even Disney have made significant changes to their streaming options for kids in recent months.
According to Nielsen’s data, YouTube attracted 10.4% of all TV viewing time in July, the first time any streamer has crossed the 10% mark. That’s an increase of 0.5% over June’s figures when YouTube helped streaming cross the 40% mark of all TV viewing for the first time in history.
It’s not to say that YouTube’s success means that other streamers are doing poorly. Traditionally, reaching 1% of all TV time is a good milestone for a streaming service, and many of the top subscription services reached this mark in July, including Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, Peacock, and Paramount+. But none of them are approaching the dominance that YouTube is putting on display.
YouTube is especially popular among younger generations. Data consistently shows that Gen Zers and younger viewers prefer platforms like YouTube and TikTok to linear TV or streaming services, and families with kids are happy to lean into the popularity of these social video sites. The endless supply of videos from trusted and familiar creators and sources means that adults can allow their kids to stream without concern of inappropriate content popping up, especially if they are using the YouTube Kids portal.
Is YouTube to Blame for Shut-Down of Noggin, Boomerang?
The popularity of YouTube among younger audiences may have helped decision-makers at Hollywood’s biggest legacy media companies to feel better about letting go of their kids’ streaming services. Two major streamers geared towards children’s content have shut down in the past year: Boomerang and Noggin.
Boomerang was operated by Warner Bros. Discovery and was mostly a repository for animated content from Cartoon Network. In early August. WBD announced that it would be shuttering the streamer and merging its content onto its flagship service Max.
Paramount’s streaming service Noggin specialized in kids content sourced from Nickelodeon, such as “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Paw Patrol.” The service was sunset at the start of July, and most of the titles on the service were already available on Paramount+.
Even Disney has made some major changes to its kid-friendly streamer Disney+. The company began merging titles from its general entertainment streamer Hulu onto Disney+ in March to make the streamer a more all-in-one experience that offered more content for adults alongside its kids’ classics.
There are many reasons that these companies decided to make such major changes to their streaming strategy for young viewers, and cost played a big factor in the decisions to shut down Boomerang and Noggin. But YouTube’s supremacy among younger viewers likely also played a role and has probably led even the biggest creators of kids’ content to rethink their streaming plans.
Disney+
Disney+ is a video streaming service with over 13,000 series and films from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, The Muppets, and more. It is available in 61 countries and 21 languages. It is notable for its popular original series like “The Mandalorian,” “Ms. Marvel,” “Loki,” “Obi-Wan Kenobi,” and “Andor.”