I’m Calling It… Ms. Rachel Is Massive on Netflix

YouTube is becoming TV faster than TV is becoming YouTube and do you know who couldn’t give a fiddler’s fart…?  Preschoolers.  Platforms are immaterial to the youngest of audiences.  Whether it’s YouTube, Netflix, an old DVD or their local PSB, they’re simply interested in watching their favorite characters delight them on the screen. The industry squirms, laments, and strategizes about YouTube’s Hollywood takeover while kids sit where they’ve always been—leagues ahead, driving change for the entire entertainment sector. 

The very first Netflix Kids Content Performance Report brought this reality home for me.  From the get-go, the engagement footprint of YouTube preschool IP on Netflix was super notable. I had already written at length about how big an engagement driver CoComelon was on Netflix, hitting more than 250M views at its peak, but the scale and shape of the longer tail of young-skewing YouTube shows made for another seriously interesting takeaway.  Kids are living in the future, folks; Hollywood is only catching up.  

Young audiences are so far in the future, in fact, that the first wave of kids YouTube mega brands is a dot.  Kings have been made, dethroned, and made again. CoComelon, once the leader by a country mile, now mills around amongst the pack of preschool shows on Netflix. 

Here’s the sales part: all this analysis is made possible by the Netflix Kids Content Performance Report project.  My small team and I continue to catch big fish in the waters of Netflix data and prioritise surfacing industry insights that move kids media conversations forward.  This is enabled by the support of our clients. The Netflix Kids Content Performance Report project felt like the right way to monetize my writing, rather than slapping a paywall on this newsletter. If your company believes in this type of work, drop me a line and we can find a way for you to come on board: admin@ehorgmedia.com

There’s a real inflection point in Netflix preschool at the moment—with IPs old and new, traditional and digital, all jostling to see who will come out on top. Everyone has eyes on Ms. Rachel when it comes to new digital kids content. If you’re unfamiliar, what rock have you been under?  Qualified educator Rachel Accurso (aka Ms. Rachel) started posting YouTube videos in 2019. She and her husband (helpfully a Broadway music producer) searched for media resources to support their own son’s speech delay. In the face of limited options, they decided to create their own. Their YouTube channel Songs for Littles had classic nursery rhyme formats, known to work on the platform, but all with an underpinning of speech therapy techniques.  In the face of the COVID lockdown, it wasn’t long before the videos started blowing up. By the end of 2022, Ms. Rachel had featured on The Today Show.  In early 2023 she signed with CAA, lining up a toy development deal with Spin Master a few months later.  

This newsletter has tracked the rise of numerous preschool IPs over the years: CoComelon, Bluey, Gabby’s Dollhouse. Call me a multiplatform girlie, but I get excited when I can see data from at least two different angles (it’s my kink—don’t judge me). Last year saw Ms. Rachel making moves towards traditional media in pitch perfect collaborations with The Wiggles and Sesame Street. In January 2025 Ms. Rachel would debut on Netflix.  Four episodes running between 30 and 60 minutes, loosely themed around topics like learning to read, learning to talk and nursery rhymes.

The show popped on multiple content performance signals immediately. First Trending Rankings, then, more quantifiably, Netflix’s Global Top 10s. This latter data source gives us the consolidated picture of how well Ms. Rachel is doing on Netflix. She launched strong, #5 in the ranking with over 12M hours viewed. This has normalized to between 6 and 7M hours viewed per week. With this level of engagement, we can say that Ms. Rachel will almost definitely be a Top 10 Netflix kids show for H1 2025. She even has a good shot at making the Top 5. On that basis, I'm calling It... Ms. Rachel Is massive on Netflix. We've never been in a position before where we could make this assessment before the H1 2025 data even drops!

When we look at US Nielsen Streaming Content Ratings, the picture is similar. Good launch, normalizing down to solid consistency. Ms. Rachel isn’t popping quite as high as CoComelon’s heyday yet, that's why she's not hitting in the weekly Top 10s. There is a steady decent drum beat of good engagement week in, week out, which is arguably more important.

One interesting thing I noticed when scooching around to research this story: Ms. Rachel took a hiatus from posting any new longform episodes on her YouTube channel. This strategically aligned with the Netflix activity. The down period concluded recently with a potty training special, which boasted neat brand extension into a timely book and toy line.  

The YouTube hiatus hasn’t impacted engagement. Views for her channel, Ms. Rachel – Toddler Learning Videos, continue to generally increase, now hitting close to 400M per month. Less than CoComelon’s billion monthly views but still extremely compelling.

This steady performance across the board stands out given that Ms. Rachel has faced online backlash for her advocacy on LGBTQ+ rights and support for children affected by the conflict in Gaza. Her robust engagement across all metrics despite organized criticism campaigns shows her core audience values educational content above all political noise—demonstrating the strength of her brand connection with families.  And that parent-creator relationship is crucial because, as I mentioned earlier, preschoolers don’t care about content platforms, but parents do. 

Netflix offer a safer place for young kids—no ads, with regulated content. This will have been a big draw for Ms. Rachel as an IP, a brand, a franchise. To be imminently rubbing shoulders with quality preschool shows like Sesame Street also has to be a draw.    

The tag team of Ms. Rachel and Sesame Street marks tumultuous times that are coming in the Netflix preschool competitive set.  CoComelon will make a partial exit for an exclusive deal with Disney.  Other major established franchises like Gabby’s Dollhouse, Peppa Pig and PAW Patrol are waiting in the wings.  Ms. Rachel will have to fight for her corner. But the newest kid on the block is also the freshest and she has Season 2 hitting this summer. This will only add to her stellar start.    

Ms. Rachel’s trajectory from YouTube creator to Netflix contender is hopefully symptomatic of where media is heading: a world where quality content transcends platform boundaries and creators who understand their audience win regardless of distribution method. Her strategic YouTube hiatus during the Netflix launch period demonstrates sophisticated thinking about platform optimization and deal making, while her consistent performance across both is evidence that great children’s content is genuinely platform-agnostic. Streaming exclusivity of this nature for high profile kids YouTube IP could make for a powerful revenue stream; Ms. Rachel’s success suggests that authenticity and educational value might be the most sustainable competitive advantage. The preschoolers were right all along—it’s not the platform, it’s the connection that matters.