These Kids’ Series Dominated Netflix’s Most-Watched Licensed Shows
Movieguide® Contributor
Netflix’s most-watched licensed shows for the first half of 2024 are COCOMELON, YOUNG SHELDON and PEPPA PIG.
“Not surprisingly, kids content continues to fare well — extremely well. No. 1 on the TV side is perennial preschool favorite COCOMELON, from Moonbug Entertainment, which pulled in 124.5 million views in aggregate,” Variety reported Sept. 19. “And that doesn’t include the two seasons of COCOMELON LANE (34.4 million), which is a Netflix original produced by Moonbug. In addition, Moonbug’s LITTLE ANGEL series garnered 52.4 million views over its five volumes.”
PEPPA PIG brought 117.4m views for its six seasons, while YOUNG SHELDON had 106m views. SUITS also did well with 81.2m views for its nine seasons.
“Reruns of THE WALKING DEAD (47.1 million) and BREAKING BAD (38.0 million) also continued to pay off for Netflix,” Variety reported. “Other notable licensed TV shows that ranked highly on Netflix’s report are Showtime’s DEXTER (33.2 million views) and HBO’s SEX AND THE CITY (33.1 million).”
“We’ve got a rich history of helping break some of TV’s biggest hits, like BREAKING BAD and WALKING DEAD,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said. “Because of our recommendation, our reach, we can resurrect a show like SUITS and turn it into a big pop-culture moment but also generate billions of hours of joy for our members.”
Last year, Sarandos announced that the company would pursue licensed content persistently. But then in April 2024, it was announced that Netflix would use most of its $17 billion budget on original content.
Variety said, “Note that in many cases, Netflix does not have worldwide licensing rights for TV shows and movies. For example, BIG BANG THEORY is not available in the U.S. on Netflix; shows licensed from HBO (including SEX AND THE CITY and INSECURE) are available in the U.S., Latin America, and some European and Asia-Pacific countries. Meanwhile, some content is available for limited periods: Tom Cruise’s TOP GUN: MAVERICK was available in the U.S. for only a few months in 2024; currently the film is available in Australia and several European countries on Netflix.”
Three of the platform’s most-watched movies for 2024’s first half were licensed. All of them were family movies — THE SUPER MARIO BROS. MOVIE, MINIONS and THE BOSS BABY.
Though the kids and family genre is popular, a lot of kids’ content is not completely wholesome, and parents should exercise discernment. Even gentle preschool shows like PEPPA PIG are marred.
Movieguide® previously reported:
PEPPA PIG became the most recent example of entertainment’s over-sexualization of children’s programming, as GLAAD and others laud same-sex characters in the latest episode.
The scene depicts Penny Polar Bear as having two mothers, which she describes in the show and includes a picture.
“I’m Penny Polar Bear,” Peppa’s classmate says. “I live with my mommy and my other mommy. One mommy is a doctor and one mommy cooks spaghetti. I love spaghetti.”
