According to Netflix’s engagement report for the first half of 2026, four names originally from YouTube are among the platform’s most-watched children’s titles. CoComelon, for years Netflix’s most-watched children’s show, moves to Disney+ from 2027. Netflix has swapped its factory of animated brands for creators with their own audiences.
Emily Horgan, YouTube & Streaming Specialist and author of the The Kids StreamerSphere newsletter, noticed this shift. She asks what has happened to animated brands from YouTube, such as CoComelon, and whether they have faded into irrelevance. Her answer is “Absolutely not.” According to her, the content keeps travelling, locally and globally.
YouTube creators in Netflix’s report
Netflix’s report for the first half of 2026 lists, for children’s content, Ms. Rachel with 69 million views over two seasons, the CrunchLabs content of Mark Rober with 36 million over four seasons, the duo Salish and Jordan Matter with 29 million, and Danny Go! with 26 million for his first season. Viewers across the platform watched more than 97 billion hours in the half-year. None of these brands was made for television. Their audiences were built on YouTube.
CoComelon’s move to Disney+
CoComelon has been among Netflix’s most-watched children’s shows since 2020. It no longer appears among the children’s titles in the current report, and according to The Hollywood Reporter, its viewing fell by almost 60% between the first half of 2023 and the second half of 2024. Netflix offered to renew the licence at a higher price than before, yet a rival paid more.
Disney takes over the rights from 2027, and according to Tubefilter will pay tens of millions of dollars a year for them. The brand is produced by Moonbug studio, which belongs to Candle Media, co-founded by Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs, former Disney executives. The CoComelon Lane spinoff and the Blippi show remain on Netflix.
Ms. Rachel as a licensing template
Following the same logic, Netflix acquired Ms. Rachel in January 2025. Her first season had 53 million views in Netflix’s first-half 2025 report.
Rachel Griffin-Accurso came to the platform on 27 January 2025 under a non-exclusive licence, with the first four episodes assembled from her earlier videos. According to a Forbes estimate, she earned around $23 million.
A non-exclusive licence for finished content with a proven audience carries lower cost and risk for Netflix than original production.
From licensing to original production with Rober
Netflix made another deal a year later, on 20 August 2025, with Mark Rober, former NASA engineer. Content from his CrunchLabs brand is among the children’s titles tracked in Netflix’s latest report.
Rober is the eighth highest-earning creator on Forbes’ 2025 ranking, with more than 76 million followers and an estimated annual income of around $25 million.
Rober is shifting the relationship from licensing finished videos to making content for the platform itself, with an educational family competition premiering in 2026. Data favours children’s content. According to a YouGov survey from 2023, 49% of parents consider a children’s content offering before deciding on a subscription.
The European framework and local children’s IP
For the European market this shift has its own layer. The 2018 amendment to the Audiovisual Media Services Directive, according to Screen Daily, requires on-demand catalogues to include at least a 30% share of European works and to ensure their prominence. The rule applies to both streaming and video-sharing platforms.
For local children’s content, the European quota meets proven viewer behaviour. Horgan describes Netflix’s strength as taking locally proven content and testing how far it travels. The same quota applies to Netflix and to competitors such as Amazon Prime Video and YouTube. European children’s creators with an audience on YouTube meet both requirements at once: they are European works, and their audience is proven.
Netflix treats children’s content as a retention tool and, at the same time, as insurance against YouTube, where the same creators came from. CoComelon is heading elsewhere, but the mechanics remain the same. The platform is buying an audience that had already found the creator somewhere else.
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