The Big Bluey Wave: Teaching a Mature Dog New Tricks
There is one undeniable darling of the kids media landscape right now, and that is Bluey. It’s an exceptional thing for an IP to be so simultaneously beloved by kids, parents, and kids media professionals alike. All merited, of course. I honestly can’t think of a single criticism that has been or could be levelled at this show.
The rise of Bluey was covered in a previous instalment of this newsletter. In short, the show was commissioned by ABC Australia and picked up by BBC Studios. It rolled out on Disney Channels Worldwide and then in 2020 boarded the Disney+ global launch train (choo choo). Australia went first with a franchise play on consumer products from Moose Toys. The world followed, and Bluey kept building and building and building. By 2022 the show was on a clear upward trajectory. US toy sales were beating out Peppa and CoComelon, and Bluey would have its first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade float.
Streaming performance for Season 3 catapulted the show to new levels as it launched in 2023. It’s worth bearing in mind that Disney+ itself was not the same platform it was in 2020, having grown to approximately more than 40 million US subscribers. When we’re talking about a minutes viewed metric, as we are below, a higher volume of content will tend to beget more minutes, so new season drops can really drive engagement. Finally, I have a hunch (and disparate pieces of evidence) that Season 3 was when episodes of Bluey started having their US premiere on Disney+, as opposed to Disney linear channels. If anyone wants to confirm this, on or off the record, drop me a line.
Whatever the reason, from a streaming point of view, the Big Bluey Wave would slam. For the first time ever a kids show would drive more than a billion minutes in viewing. This soared as high as 1.5 billion when ten new episodes dropped in the first weeks of January.
Previously the biggest thing in US streaming was CoComelon on Netflix, which is also at an advantage in terms of higher subscriber numbers. The most remarkable thing about the digital IP is its consistency, a drum beat of steady, durable performance. At its peak, it skimmed just shy of a billion minutes viewed in Christmas 2022 (Bluey would win Christmas 2023). And all this is alongside viewing on its native platform of YouTube, where it’s one of only a handful of kids IPs that see over a billion views monthly.
In terms of overall viewing, Bluey’s monstrous finish to 2023 would see CoComelon ousted as the biggest overall kids show in streaming. A clear and meteoric rise against CoComelon’s unquestionable consistency. Gabby’s Dollhouse, another, younger preschool franchise on Netflix from DreamWorks, also continued to build.
In fact, Bluey was the second most watched series on US streaming in 2023 overall behind Suits, which is another phenomenon entirely. Although CoComelon holds fast at #5. A great thing for kids media as all our boats rise when we can prove the quantifiable value of the content we’re producing.
At this stage, I wouldn’t say that CoComelon has been dethroned. The two franchises have now reached maturity, and are certainly sharing a crown. CoComelon is on its own franchise journey, trying different sorts of things in this phase, as would be necessary given it’s a different sort of IP. This path includes a new Netflix show, CoComelon Lane, that launched towards the end of 2023 and isn’t included in the above numbers. I plan to get into more on this, among other things, in an upcoming newsletter.
When you have a hit, preschool franchise is big business. PAW Patrol just rang in its first decade, Peppa Pig is nearly at two. These IPs exemplify the power of hard-core brand management. What goes up can stay up as a franchise matures, but it takes work.
There was a moment last summer when a colleague forwarded me an article from a mommy blog about Blueyproduction going on “a break” after delivering these three seasons. The information had been lifted from the Australian press. For a franchise in the minting, this had the potential to be of major concern. The show had over 150 episodes in the can, undoubtedly an adequate buffer volume to maintain engagement, but stratospheric forward momentum needs fanning.
Bluey is a truly creator-led show. Writer Joe Brumm conceived of the concept and has written on all 151 episodes. Co-writers have only been brought in a handful of times. The threat of burnout is real—the team had been working on the show for four years straight.
Any concern was relatively short lived (she says from the outside; potentially, teams pitching to licensees and retailers found the period of uncertainty a bit longer). A special extended 28-minute Bluey episode was announced for 2024.
This single content deposit might seem a bit measly; however, this is a strategy we’ve seen have success before with preschool IP, once it has built up enough volume (see Doc McStuffins Season 4). The caveat is that precious content drops need to be eventized, big time. The team behind Bluey seem to be doing just that. For the first time, new content will have a global premiere, syncing across Australian ABC and Disney+. Anticipation is sure to be high all over planet Earth.
Bluey is also diversifying in digital and soaking up new audiences. A TikTok account was launched in 2022 and now has 3.3 million followers. When Simon Clarke from the BBC Studios digital team joined us on the Kids Media Club podcast last summer he said that students were a surprise new growth segment. Bluey has also branched out with a new app, which had a few valid criticisms. Most recently a derivative short-form YouTube series, Bluey Book Reads, was announced. This will see celebrity talent including Kylie Minogue and Eva Mendes narrating visuals from Bluey storybooks.
A maturing franchise can rely on this type of multifaceted approach for a while. As mentioned, there is good depth to the volume of Bluey content available to keep fans engaged. New news needs to keep coming though, and it needs to be meaningful. The balance between what will appease the audience and what will appease stakeholders is key.
Following the recent dizzying height of 1.5 billion minutes in January, the questions will be: What will day-to-day Bluey content consumption normalize to, and what are the long-term plans for the content pipeline? Peppa and PAW Patrol both got to decades by continuing to pump out episodes (and in PAW Patrol’s case, now theatrical movies). Bluey is such a special show. A beacon of meaningful preschool programming, with multilayered storytelling that reflects the lives of its viewers. Any compromise on this quality for the sake of output would be a betrayal. The team have set their own bar high.
That being said, kids, parents, caregivers, grandparents, students and kids media folks all want more Bluey. We’re fully fledged fans, rooting for the franchise to be a force for good for many years to come.
Gary Pope said it well in a recent column: making great content for kids doesn’t mean it’s not entertaining. Quite the opposite. Making the best content for kids means that it IS entertaining, but that it’s also a positive deposit in the minds and hearts of families. Bluey continuing to set the standard on what good is has to be positive for the entertainment industry as a whole. That standard should be the goal. In streaming at large, as change and uncertainty continue to loom, it’s also very helpful to demonstrate that quality kids content can also drive business at scale, all the way from viewership to revenue.