YouTube Killed Kids TV — Here’s How
By Movieguide® Contributor
Has YouTube killed kids TV?
Experts are weighing in on how YouTube channels like COCOMELON have dominated the kids’ entertainment space, leaving traditional children’s shows flailing.
Full of bright colors, dancing and catchy music, COCOMELON has snagged over 180 million subscribers on YouTube thanks to its ability to keep kids quiet.
“COCOMELON is hypnotic and mesmerising and honestly when I put it on my boy just stops what he’s doing and watches,” a mom named Lucy said. “If I’m getting him to do anything he doesn’t want, I just put it on, and he shuts up.”
Many other parents use the show as a “pacifier,” calling it “Cocainemelon” and describing their kids as “COCOMELON zombies” when it’s turned on.
While using TV as a way to keep kids entertained isn’t anything new — “Parents have been using kids TV as a member of staff since MUFFIN THE MULE arrived in 1946,” the Telegraph said — YouTube is different.
“…four per cent of TV screen viewing time for children aged 4-15 is YouTube, with more viewing taking place on laptops and phones. Only 55 per cent of children aged 4-15 watch broadcast TV each week in 2023, compared to 81 per cent in 2018 according to Ofcom,” the outlet added.
YouTube’s dominance has impacted streaming as well.
“Commissions for on-demand original shows in the children and family category dropped by 18% between 2022 and 2023,” The Streamable said earlier this month.
“One big reason for this is the dominance of YouTube among kids,” the outlet added. “A report from late 2023 found that YouTube made up a higher proportion of streaming time among viewers aged 2-11 than any subscription streaming service, including Netflix. In July, YouTube made up for more than 10% of all TV watched in the United States total, the first time any streaming video platform had surpassed that threshold.”
YouTube is an attractive option for those wanting to get into kids’ entertainment because of how affordable it is.
“YouTube pays nothing to originators,” said Anne Wood, the woman behind TELETUBBIES. “In 2005 it cost £14 million to make one series of NIGHT GARDEN. For YouTube you have to put out cheap programming that keeps kids watching so you can take a share of the ad revenue. If you hit the spot you clean up.”
Analyst Tom Harrington agrees.
“You can make an enormous amount of money from a kids TV show and it can be more successful than almost any other large format,” he said. “It travels well, language can change easily, there’s a new audience every couple of years and lots of merch opportunities. But to get commissioned in the first place is very difficult. In the UK there’s so many limits on what ads you can put around it so there’s no demand from advertisers and it’s not a good business for commercial broadcasters.”
By triggering their dopamine responses through overstimulation, COCOMELON keeps kids — and parents — coming back for more. This signals an endless stream of ad revenue for creators that is nearly impossible to get through more traditional formats.
Movieguide® previously reported on the dangers that come from shows like COCOMELON:
Children’s content, like all other media, has migrated to streaming services, but the ability for kids to choose what they watch when they want to might do more harm than good.
“Kids will always go for the biggest, fastest dopamine hit…We live in a world of instant gratification culture and actually delayed gratification is much better for happiness and mental wellbeing in the long term,” Konnie Huq, the longest-serving female presenter on CBBC’s BLUE PETER, told Sky News.
“And kids, obviously they’re not old enough to always make the right judgement calls,” she added.
Shows like COCOMELON—a popular childrens’ YouTube channel with over 168 billion views—rely on stimulating, and sometimes overstimulating, kids’ brains to trigger as much dopamine as possible.
However, the problem with streaming kids’ content extends beyond overstimulation.
The ability to switch between content makes it easy for children to end up viewing inappropriate videos. This is especially true as streaming sites typically have poor regulation on what is and is not accessible to kids.
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