Kids content is more than pulling its weight on Netflix. In H2 2025, children & family content was the streamer’s second most-popular genre, generating 4.4 billion views—beaten only by crime & thriller, according to research firm Ampere’s analysis of the company’s global viewing data. 

But despite that success, children & family content is a very small piece of Netflix’s content priorities. The genre only accounted for 4% of Netflix’s total commissions during 2024-2025, down from 9% in 2022-2023. (Netflix has not responded to a request for comment.)

And it’s not just Netflix; across the board, streamers have the lowest share of scripted children & family commissions, accounting for just 13% of children & family commissions in 2025, Ampere points out. (Public broadcasters made up the bulk, with 47%.) That’s despite the fact that it’s well-known that kids content drives subscriptions on streamers and reduces churn. Among households with kids, 35% say that having content their kids want to watch is a key motivator for subscribing. 

As an example, Ampere provided updated numbers on Netflix’s big kids hit, KPop Demon Hunters. With more than one billion viewing hours, it’s the streamer’s most-watched film of all time, and it did something rare: Netflix’s original films typically reach peak weekly viewership within their first or second week on the platform, decaying quickly after that, Ampere notes. But KPDH broke the trend “quite spectacularly” by not reaching its peak until its 11th week after release, and only saw smaller declines after—reinforcing that kids content behaves differently than other genres.

But even though KPDH demonstrated that kids viewership may not drop off as quickly as other genres, Ampere cautions streamers against only investing in a few big hits. Instead, they should embrace the fact that kids viewership is shared across a deep library of content rather than being concentrated in a few new releases. For instance, the top 50 global kids titles accounted for only 42% of total views in the genre in H2 2025—a sharp contrast to sci-fi and fantasy, where the top 50 titles commanded 84% of viewership. 

Instead, it’s Netflix’s older children & family titles that generate consistent and steady viewership, Ampere notes. Looking at the most-viewed TV series and movies since the streamer started releasing data in 2023, licensed older films like Shrek (2001), Minions (2015), Sing (2016), The Boss Baby (2017) and The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) all make the list.  

“This highlights an important nuance, that unlike other genres, performance is less driven by a small number of titles (which are typically new releases) and more by a steady, ongoing demand for recognisable content,” Ampere tells Kidscreen. “So while the viewing in this genre is not concentrated in the same way as others, it is sustained by a reliable long-tail audience largely anchored by licensed content that performs consistently over time.” 

Instead, Ampere indicated another reason why SVODs are pulling back from kids content: it’s increasingly hard for them to monetize. Streamers are growing more reliant on ad-supported tiers, which introduces complexities when it comes to kids content, since many countries, like the US, prohibit targeted advertising to kids. In addition, platforms like YouTube have been steadily drawing kids viewership away from SVODs. Plus, animation takes a long time to create and can be more expensive than some cheaper genres, like unscripted. (It may be no coincidence that many of the new kids commissions on Netflix are repurposed creator content, like its recent deal with Mark Rober. 

On the other hand, although public broadcasters also have to compete with YouTube, they don’t have to be as concerned with trying to monetize kids content, since they get public funding and are often mandated with commissioning content for kids. It’s worth noting, though, that when broadcasters aren’t forced to commission kids content, they often don’t—as the industry saw in Australia after kids quotas were scrapped. Broadcasters there quickly stopped ordering kids titles since they’re so hard to monetize, and while pubcaster ABC tried to pick up the slack, streamers didn’t. 

Taken all together, Ampere says streamers’ pullback from making original kids content means there’s less opportunity “to build new, globally recognisable IP which can drive sustained long-term engagement.” 

The industry would obviously want to see a return to the days of the streamer wars, when SVODs were commissioning plenty of kids titles. But the question remains, if a smash hit like KPop Demon Hunters couldn’t convince streamers to change up their strategies and go all-in on kids content, what possibly could?

Image courtesy of Netflix.