It should come as a surprise to no one that KPop Demon Hunters continued its victory lap at Netflix Q2 2025 earnings last night. Kids content was, to be frank, front and centre overall. Ms. Rachel and French limited animated series Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight both also got their dues. A triple whammy of success! The space is thriving—really showing what it can deliver in the broader media landscape. Having covered Netflix earnings for nearly five years now I can’t remember another time where there was so much specific to our area to talk about. It was truly glorious*!
I’m so excited to get into the detail that I’m truncating my usual overall earnings headlines:
Key Headlines:
Netflix-are-very-excited-about-their-new-user-interface
Financial-targets-are-golden
Squid Game = awesome
Next quarter = lit #Wednesday #StrangerThings
Kids Movie Performance:
As mentioned up top, the hottest thing on Netflix right now is undoubtedly the animated Sony film, KPop Demon Hunters. Ted Sarandos was proud as punch…
You can watch his full comments here but to summarize, these are the things he’s proud of…
1. The movie is truly original animation, not a sequel, not a remake
2. It got the mix right with music and pop culture
3. The storytelling was spot on
4. And so was the innovation in animation
5. The music, the music, the music, the music
6. And he can stick it to the haters about Netflix getting it right in animated movies
(Wait, Ted, was that me?)
“Netflix still need to crack animated film. That is nothing new.”
From my Q1 2025 earnings notes
(Maybe it was. Happy to eat my words!)
The streamer couldn’t announce KPop Demon Hunters as the biggest Netflix Original animated movie… yet. We know the premiere started lower in its first week but has surged with remarkable staying power. Overwhelmingly animated movies tend to peak in their first two weeks and then drop. KPDH is grafting consistency, with even a small increase which is quite remarkable.
If it keeps this up it’s sure to pass Leo as the biggest Netflix Original animated movie to date. It might even officially do that today (Friday Jul 18th, 2025). See below chart from What’s on Netflix showing its trajectory.
The performance feels viral, and for good reason. Since launch, both the soundtrack and individual singles from KPop Demon Hunters have been topping out the Billboard charts. That will have driven further awareness, while also turning the earworm screws on converted fans to go back and rewatch the movie in all its glory.
It’s a 360-degree strategy. KPDH is also very much front and centre in the Netflix Roblox Experience, where the soundtrack features again. Unsurprisingly, a number of unofficial Roblox experiences are popping up for the IP, including some notable ones which are gaining traction. I checked in with Roblox expert (and newsletter friend) Jo Redfern, and she expects this to blow up in the next two weeks.
Finally, there are three full pages of product available on Netflix Shop. They’re really going for broke on the pricing strategy here, $15 stickers, $40 t-shirts and $90 PJ bottoms. Forbidden Planet, eat your heart out—this is full fansploitation. Feels a bit blinkered to the big game, with such a large mass of engagement. And the long game if they truly want to launch this as a franchise. I wonder what Sony thinks.
TV Series Performance
It wasn’t just movies making waves this quarter—TV delivered too. Ms. Rachel, had this glowing review:
“…there are some creators on YouTube like Ms. Rachel that are a great fit. If you saw on the engagement report, she's had 53 million views in the first half of 2025 on Netflix. So she clearly works on Netflix. …”
The Ms. Rachel footprint on Netflix is something that’s shown great promise ever since the show launched back in January. By early Spring it became very clear in Kids StreamerSphere Towers that the show was landing big, something that I covered in this newsletter a few weeks ago. How big is big? So big that it needed its own article, which I wrote and it just hit Kidscreen:
The other new kids show that popped this quarter was Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight. This French limited series hit the Netflix Global Top 10 for three weeks when it launched in May and ended up in the Top 10 for individual kids seasons per the Netflix Engagement Report.
Good success to be sure. It also featured eye-wateringly priced product on Netflix Shop. There’s something about €15 stickers, which would typically be given away as promo, that I find very triggering.
What’s Next?
So, there you have it. What a great time to be in kids media! We have a franchise-worthy animated movie doing well on Netflix and creator lead kids content that entertains and educates majorly connecting. Heck, stepping off Netflix for a sec—didn’t Bluey, like, slam dunk the recent Nielsen report looking at US streaming in 2025 so far. So wow! We’re really killing it, you guys. We’re really showing the value that kids content has to offer the media landscape as a whole. What could possibly go wro…
*Alongside all this success the ground still crumbles underneath the kids media industry. Traditional funding bodies are dropping like flies. Full SNAFU energy. Concurrently YouTube revenue for kids content has completely combusted since the 2019 FTC ruling so that ain’t saving us. To anyone reading this outside of the Kids Streamersphere, we’re dying folks. And so is your kids access to the quality content they deserve. Do I have any answers? No. In my experience, the only thing that gives hope in capitalism is business cases. And I will continue to make the business case for kids media by highlighting (through quantified metrics of course) the value of the audience that our work delivers to the industry as a whole.
Netflix have plenty of that value coming up. The 7 Bears limited series is already showing legs (butt scratches aside), plus they sound gung-ho to bat two-for-two on animated features with In Your Dreams. In the meantime, I need to grab that engagement data and hunker down for the next Netflix Kids Content Performance Report. If your company would like to support the work I do, please drop me a line at emily@ehorgmedia.com.
Happy Friday everyone. I’m glad that week is over.
Kids content + music + franchise development 🤝!
I do really wish KPop demon hunters got a theatrical window… I feel that would’ve made it feel even bigger…
Great write-up! As with all things, I’m sure that KPop Demon Hunters felt like a huge risk until it wasn’t. Sony clearly didn’t think it would work theatrically, but now it’s sort of obvious that it would have.