Audience with the highest streaming loyalty finds itself illiterate
Children's programming plays a vital role in maintaining the stability and consistency of streaming traffic on popular platforms like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+. According to recent data from Digital i, kids’ viewing generates two daily spikes—morning (6-9 am) and evening (5-7 pm)—that are remarkably consistent across streaming platforms, creating a reliable baseline of traffic outside prime adult viewing hours.
This consistent demand helps maintain stable user engagement and supports monetization during periods that would otherwise experience lower traffic. The stability provided by children’s content is essential for streaming services, as the average gross churn rate for premium SVOD services hit 5.8% in Q3 2024, and monthly cancellations routinely exceed 6% across top platforms.
Children’s content tends to encourage repetitive viewing habits, leading to sustained engagement metrics since kids watch the same content multiple times. This platform-agnostic pattern across Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ ensures steady demand and predictable load on streaming servers, facilitating better planning and resource allocation by these services.
The reliability of children’s content contrasts with the more variable adult viewing habits that depend on new releases or highly marketed shows. While technical optimizations like Netflix’s Open Connect system focus on efficient content delivery to ensure quality and stability for all streaming, children’s programming specifically contributes to traffic consistency by reducing fluctuations in demand, thus aiding the overall network stability of these platforms.
Kids' shows account for just over 10% of all linear TV viewing at 8am, and the 5-7pm peak belongs to streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+. The success of shows like Bluey, which has more than 20 partners in the UK and a long runway across North America and EMEA, reaching 40 million people weekly in 17 languages, demonstrates the commercial viability of children’s content.
The global licensing program for Bluey spans toys, books, games, live experiences, and apparel, and Disney+ continues to double down on both core IP and licensed hits, with titles like Bluey, Frozen and Moana 2. The BBC’s commercial arm hit record revenues of £2.2 billion in 2024/25 due to the success of shows like Bluey.
In addition to providing stability and consistency, children's content offers daily utility and emotional stickiness, providing friction that keeps households locked in to streaming platforms. Netflix has acquired Ms. Rachel and new seasons of Sesame Street, demonstrating a commitment to investing in children's content.
Overall, children's programming acts as a “safety net” for streaming services by providing stable, predictable, and repeated viewing patterns that smooth daily traffic curves, sustain engagement, and help maintain monetization and network stability during less active periods.
- Business insights reveal that children's content, such as shows like Bluey, not only provides emotional engagement but also offers commercial viability, with global licensing programs generating revenue in toys, books, games, live experiences, and apparel.
- In the realm of marketing strategies, streaming services like Netflix recognize the importance of children's programming, given its role in promoting stable user engagement and network stability during less active periods.
- The media landscape acknowledges the significance of children's programming beyond just linear TV viewing, as streaming services like Netflix, Prime Video, and Disney+ capitalize on the daily utility and emotional resonance of such content to foster a sense of loyalty among families and households.
- Relationships within family-dynamics and home-and-garden spheres find a meeting point with the streaming world, as children's content offers a stable anchor for viewers, contributing to the predictable load on streaming servers and supporting the monetization efforts during periods of lower traffic.
