A look at Netflix's kids programming and the creators it has hired to develop family friendly offerings, as it prepares for the gradual loss of Disney content
the ways that people build habits and build trust — shows and movies for children and families are incredibly important to us.” https://www.nytimes.com/... Brooks Barnes / @brooksbarnesnyt : Inside Netflix's counterattack on the kids and family front as Disney content starts to disappear from the service https://www.nytimes.com/... Gregory Schmidt / @gregorynyc : As the need for children's programming increases, Netflix leans on Dr. Seuss, Willy Wonka and a slew of content creators to compete with Disney Plus, reports @brooksbarnesNYT https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimesbusiness @chrisdocnee : Morning shout out in the New York Times. #NetflixAnimation is on the prowl. (And sorry if I'm not returning phone calls - here's why) @nytimes https://www.nytimes.com/... @nytimesbusiness : Bracing for the Nov. 12 arrival of Disney Plus, Netflix has amassed an army of animators and children's TV creators to make preschool cartoons, teen movies and Pixar-style films https://www.nytimes.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Kids programming has been Netflix's habit-formation play since at least 2015, when it and Amazon were both trying to hook viewers early with high-quality children's content. What changed by late 2019 is that the licensed habit was about to be pulled: Disney's family catalog was headed to Disney Plus, and Netflix's own disastrous Q2 results — a subscriber miss and the pain of losing huge shows — left it needing in-house hits fast.
The response is a hiring and licensing spree: children's TV creators, animators, and familiar family IP like Dr. Seuss and Willy Wonka, assembled to replace Disney's departing slate. It matters because kids' viewing is sticky — the trust a family builds with a service through children's shows carries the whole household subscription.
First-order effects
- Disney's exit removes Netflix's most reliable family programming just as Disney Plus launches with that same catalog as its centerpiece, forcing Netflix to fill the gap immediately with hired creators and licensed brands like Seuss and Wonka.
- Netflix's content budget, already stretched after the Q2 subscriber miss, gets redirected toward kids and family originals — a bet that owned children's IP can hold households that licensed Disney titles used to hold.
Second-order effects
- Amazon and the other streamers building kids slates face a competitor that no longer needs Disney's catalog, intensifying the bidding for children's TV creators and family-friendly IP across the industry.
- Disney Plus's launch makes family viewing the clearest differentiator between services, pushing rivals to either build kids brands of their own or accept churn among households whose decision-driver is the children's lineup.
Third-order effects
- The episode cements the lesson that licensed content is rented loyalty: streamers that depend on other studios' family catalogs are exposed to exactly the pull-out Netflix faced, accelerating the shift toward owned IP — a cycle that later reversed when Disney and WBD began licensing content back to Netflix for cash, holding back only their most popular titles.
- If the pattern holds, kids programming becomes the structural anchor of every streaming service — the category where trust and habit form first and churn resists — making children's creators and legacy family IP the scarcest assets in the streaming wars.
The trend: Streaming is consolidating around owned family IP as the loyalty anchor, with studios pulling kids catalogs into their own services when they can and re-licensing them only when they need the cash.