The Data Behind Kids Media's Best and Worst Year Ever + Major Announcements
2025 has been a scorching hot year for kids IP. In theaters we’ve seen major releases like Lilo & Stitch and A Minecraft Movie bring home billion-dollar box office returns. On streaming, Ms. Rachel and KPop Demon Hunters have upended Netflix, while Gabby’s Dollhouse took the platform’s #1 kids spot. Bluey continues its phenomenal run on Disney+, and even Paramount+ has entered the kids streaming big leagues, with SpongeBob SquarePants seeing a quantifiable revival. Yet beneath that positivity, the landscape has never been more precarious. Commissioning is drying up. YouTube revenue is unworkable. The excruciating paradox between success and mounting industry challenges has been the overarching theme of this newsletter over the summer.
That’s precisely why we were thrilled to launch the latest Netflix Kids Content Performance Report this week, and why I’m announcing a paid tier to this newsletter. Data is the beating heart of corporate storytelling. That thing we do where we build business cases to persuasively guide the perspectives of decision-making stakeholders. We’ve had direct feedback that this is something our clients rely on the report to achieve, so we’re opening top-line access to some of those insights to the wider community. More on that in a minute.
The H1 2025 Netflix Kids Content Performance Report
I say it every time, but this latest report is my favorite one yet, and for good reason. For the first time since these reports began, we have a new champion! By all metrics Gabby’s Dollhouse claimed the #1 show spot on Netflix globally in H1 2025. Timing couldn’t be more perfect as Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie launches in US theaters today. Our exclusive analysis revealed something remarkable: Universal, parent company of Gabby’s Dollhouse producer DreamWorks, deliver nearly a fifth of all kids and family engagement on Netflix. We also go deep on new IP, looking at what can be learned from the rise of Ms. Rachel and KPop Demon Hunters: two true originals in a world of sequels and derivatives.
Threaded throughout the whole report is YouTube, the biggest streaming platform for kids in the world. We outline this dominance through landscape data provided by Precise TV (they just released a free report here) and Digital i. YouTube is integral to understanding the success of Ms. Rachel, Gabby’s Dollhouse and even KPop Demon Hunters. Finally, we conducted a deep dive into Netflix’s Kids YouTube footprint, analyzing the presence from both a brand and an individual IP perspective.
If your company is interested in accessing these insights, including personalized debriefs and retained consultancy, please don’t hesitate to drop me a line directly, emily@ehorgmedia.com. In addition to the report, the team and I deliver detailed bespoke webinars on the insights. It’s in these conversations where real learnings tend to percolate for clients.
A huge thank you to trade press and colleagues for their support with this edition. We had shout-outs from The Ankler, Licensing.biz, World Screen, Kidscreen and Jing Daily. We also partnered with What’s on Netflix to tell the definitive story on KPop Demon Hunters.
The biggest thank you goes to our incredible clients, who remain thoughtful and supportive partners throughout this insight endeavor. Your engagement and feedback constantly elevates the work. We’re grateful for your belief that these insights create value not just for your teams but for the industry as a whole.
There’s plenty in the pipeline. A new report on teen content at Netflix is in active development, with early results looking compelling—think Wednesday, Ginny & Georgia, ONE PIECE, My Life with the Walter Boysand a top line on anime. If you’ll be at MIPCOM and want to hear more about this, drop me a DM.
Details about the Paid Tier
And finally, a paid tier of this newsletter will be commencing, The Kids StreamerSphere – Access! This will allow me to share more of the insights I’m actively investing in. Going deeper into the data has meant building infrastructure beyond my solo act. I now have an exceedingly excellent team working consistently on the analyses, and it’s time to take things to the next level.
What can you expect? In-depth analysis, charts and frameworks. Full, unfiltered Horgan Hot Takes TM on what’s happening in the industry. Context, always context, behind the data. I get constant outreach from small producers and independents looking for data to inform their strategies, create conversations and stimulate decision making with their stakeholders. Launching a paid tier of this newsletter provides that. Deepest analysis and consulting-level engagement will remain reserved for clients of the Netflix Kids Content Performance Report, but a paid option in this newsletter will give me a way to continue opening some topics up further for the kids media community. Don’t worry—if you stay as a free subscriber, you’ll still get top-line thoughts but not the full picture.
The first drop in paid will land next week. The title is “Streaming Wars Are Over: YouTube Has Won.” It will be an opus of data points showing YouTube’s dominance in the streaming space, with highlights specifically for kids content. All the background you need to prove why being on YouTube is so key for kids IP. Take it to your CEOs, take it to your corporate stakeholders, take it to your public service broadcasters. Take it to your regulators, your policy makers, your distribution partners, your media agencies. Your writers, directors, animators, composers, lecturers, markers, promo producers, programmers, UX designers. There’s a reason why the theme of YouTube was threaded throughout an industry report on Netflix. It’s because in the world of kids media, YouTube is inescapable.
Kids IP can take over the world. KPop Demon Hunters has proven that this summer. But it has also revealed two critical truths: you must know how to read the data, and you must activate strategically—with YouTube as an essential part of the equation. Upgrade to paid and I’ll give you all the data you need to make that YouTube case next week…
Emily, this is such a sharp distillation of the paradox: kids IP is breaking records while creators face drying commissions and shaky revenue streams. Love how you frame data as the beating heart of corporate storytelling—that’s a line worth underlining for every exec in media right now.