Practically everywhere you go these days you’ll catch a glimpse of a parent handing over their smartphone to a fussy child. Gone are the days of shiny keys, we have officially entered the era of on-demand content pacifying rambunctious kids. But what is it exactly that the kids are watching these days? With so many streaming services out there can anyone platform truly dominate such an insatiable market?
Well, before any of those questions can be answered it’s important to know exactly what it is that kids are looking for in a video on demand (VOD) service in the first place. There are three main factors when it comes to what matters to kids. And it’s not brand loyalty; sorry Netflix.
According to The Drum’s Future of TV initiative, children aged six to nine around the world agree that a VOD platform must simply have their favorite shows. The study revealed that 57% of kids surveyed said that their favorite shows and movies were their top priority. After that, it was the variety of content available at 29% and access to new content at 27%.
Netflix has long dominated the children's streaming market and it has been mostly due to the streamer’s extensive library of content for kids that is updated frequently. A Parrot Analytics report revealed that Netflix owned one-quarter of the children’s market thanks to popular shows like “CoComelon” and “PJ Masks.”
So what do other VOD services plan to do about it? Disney+ appears to have a plan and it has something to do with focusing on that top priority of offering kids their favorite shows. By now you have probably heard the news that Netflix had a net loss of over 200,000 users last quarter. It seems that that loss has affected the children’s market as well. Since 2020, Netflix has seen its share of the kids market shrink while Disney+ has increased by a remarkable 45% since launching in late 2019.
A U.K. study showed that seven out of the top 10 characters that children aged 10-12 clamor for are available on Disney+. Those characters came from places like the Marvel Universe and Springfield (the home of Bart and Homer Simpson). And only Harry Potter stood alone as the single top 10 character that kids could find on Netflix in the U.K. For what it’s worth, The Stremable also has Disney+ at the top of our list of the eight best streaming services for children.
The streamers with the highest mountain to climb in terms of kids content are Hulu and HBO Max and it may come down to the fact that they just don’t have enough popular characters to compete with Disney+ and Netflix. Because, let’s face it, it the world of children’s entertainment content is king for many consumers, or in this case maybe prince and princess.