Streamer Orders for Kids TV Plunge From 196 to 88 in Four Years

First-run orders for children's TV from subscription streaming services have collapsed from 196 in the 12 months to the first half of 2022 to just 88 in the 12 months to the first half of 2026. Cyrine Amor, senior research manager at Ampere Analysis, unveiled the figures Saturday at MipJunior, the kids and family prelude to Mipcom, the world's biggest annual TV market, which opens Monday in Cannes.

The 88 orders do represent a 22% uptick over 2025's figure of 72, Amor noted. But the recovery starts from a radically lower base — less than half the volume of four years ago.

Last decade, streamers were hailed as the great hope for kids and family entertainment. The argument ran that parents would not cancel a service carrying their children's favorite shows, and that kids love repeat viewing. Ten years on, that promise has not held.

Why did streamers pull back?

Three structural forces emerged from Amor's presentation.

• Platform competition. SVOD operators stream 240,000 hours of annual content globally, Netflix alone 4,000 hours. But AVOD offers 140,000 hours a year — Tubi alone 24,000 — and YouTube hosts 250 kids channels with over 10 million subscribers each, totaling 300,000 hours across videos, shorts and livestreams. Eighty percent of those channels target pre-school audiences.
• The long tail dominates. According to Ampere Analysis' PlumResearch, 90% of streaming views and 75% of titles come from long-tail catalog content — think "Star Trek," "Dark," "Archer" and "Primal" — rather than first-run hits like "Squid Game."
• New content is shrinking on every platform. The share of hours from content first released in the previous five years has halved on Amazon Prime Video, from 22% in July 2022 to 11% in July 2024. Disney fell from 23% to 13% over the same period. Netflix, which has pushed hardest on first-run commissions, still dropped from 48% to 36%.

Is Gen Alpha even watching?

The audience itself is shifting. Amor described how different "need states" map onto distinct primary media services for Gen Z. For four of six states — "when I'm bored," "want to be immersed," "want to discover something new" and "want to take my mind off things" — Gen Z turns to streaming services.

Gen Alpha, born in the 2010s and early 2020s, behaves differently. Streaming services or YouTube rank first for only two of those need states. When Gen Alpha wants immersion, distraction or relief from boredom, it turns to video games or game apps.

Who fills the gap?

The uncomfortable answer for producers: nobody has signed on to save the kids content industry. Netflix animation executives are passionate and percipient, but they are a private-sector business, not saviors. That role traditionally belongs to public service broadcasters, which carry a mandate for educative children's entertainment.

On that front there is one bright spot. Public broadcasters such as the BBC and Germany's ARD remain the biggest source of kids content first-run orders, making 371 commissions over the 12 months to the first half of 2026 — more than four times the streamers' total.

"Public service media should be cherished," Evan Shapiro, who delivers the closing keynote at MipJunior on Oct. 11, once said.

The economics, however, are moving against them. Public broadcaster revenues have plateaued at an estimated $53 billion for 2026, Amor said. That figure pales beside $174 billion for subscription OTT and $292 billion for other online ad revenues in the same year. Factor in inflation — currently 3.8% in the E.U. — and public broadcaster revenues are effectively wilting. They also remain an easy target for future budget cuts.

With streamers retrenching, Gen Alpha gaming and public broadcasters squeezed, the financing gap for kids content looks set to dominate conversations on the Croisette this week.