What’s trending on YouTube in lockdown?

The platform's viewership is the highest it's been this year, as children look for music, fairytales and workout videos, Tubular Labs finds.
April 9, 2020

Kids are clearly getting moving, as the views on children’s workout content across YouTube spiked to more than 7.5 million a day on average over the last few weeks, according to digital analytics firm Tubular Labs. The number of views for children’s physical education videos has also risen on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as parents look to fill a gap in their kids’ daily schedules left bare by school closures, Tubular found in its COVID-19: Know what the world is watching Kids report.

In particular, young audiences are flocking to YouTube, and the week of March 16th topped viewership numbers among kids for the entire year to date, according to Tubular. Producers looking to take advantage of the increased number of eyeballs on YouTube should think about creating content that can fill the gaps in kids routine school activities, including arts and crafts and reading, Tubular says.

Creators should also consider making videos that are 20 minutes or longer, because parents are looking for content that will engage their children for prolonged periods of time to give the adults time to do their own work. In fact, in the first 72 hours of the lockdown, the avarage views for 20-minute-plus videos spiked at 141,000, a 30% increase over videos in the 15- to 20-minute range.

Musical content topped the five most-viewed kids videos that week, which includes Baby Shark” (67.5 million views that week), “Vlad and Nikita play with Mombie Doll”(32.1 million views that week), “Five little baby sitting in chair song” (27.1 million views that week),”The We are in the Car Wheels On The Bus Song Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs” (26.8 million views that week) and “Yes Yes Vegetables Song|CoComelon Nursery Rhymes & Kids Song” (24. 1 million views that week). Musical videos are consistently among the most watched kids content. Overall, kids music is up 21%, driven by a spike in views on videos that encourage kids to wash their hands to a song.

Animated content’s popularity is also on the rise, drawing in more than billion daily views, which is the second-best week of total viewership for the genre on YouTube ever. Viewership for kids game and activities videos is up 10%, while fairy tale-focused content is up 74%. Videos featuring toys, meanwhile, increased 20%, while kids franchises is up 22% compared to the same period in 2019, finds Tubular.

Starting April 8, to tap into its increased viewership, YouTube lifted the paywall on its original kids and family shows for a limited time.. The platform is releasing episodes weekly from SherwoodWe Are Savvy, Hyperlinked, Fruit Ninja Frenzy Force and Kings of Atlantis. The AVOD has been shifting away from paywalled originals last year, and made all future originals free beginning last September. Older seasons of shows were still paywalled until now, signaling its intention to compete agains the likes of Amazon Prime Video, which have also lifted paywalls on kids and family content.

About The Author
News editor for Kidscreen. Ryan covers tech, talent and general kids entertainment news, with a passion for kids rap content and video games. Have a story that's of interest to Kidscreen readers? Contact Ryan at rtuchow@brunico.com

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