By Emily Horgan

When it comes to its kids content strategy, Netflix is fundamentally in the business of audience rental.

The streamer boasts some of the biggest kids IPs on the planet—Peppa Pig, PAW Patrol, SpongeBob SquarePants—none of which it built itself. This is a no-brainer strategy. These shows are crowd-pleasers with built-in audiences that Netflix can rent for the price of an acquisition fee.

One of the most interesting developments in recent years is the foothold that YouTube IPs have carved out on Netflix. This also makes perfect sense—YouTube is the only platform that definitively outpaces Netflix in terms of audience reach. So in a way, Netflix is renting YouTube’s audience.

Given all of this logic, it came as no surprise that the hottest kids IP to emerge from YouTube in recent years, Ms. Rachel, came out top in the latest Netflix engagement report, released at their earnings call last night. The data we’re seeing suggests this isn’t just another successful acquisition—it’s building to be the leading IP in the Netflix kids strategy.   

Ms. Rachel debuted on Netflix in the US and other global markets last January. There have been multiple indicators to suggest it launched big, but how big is big? Netflix now drops engagement reports with tens of thousands of lines of data aligned with earnings calls twice a year, which I analyze in my comprehensive Netflix Kids Content Performance Reports—and we can say with certainty that Ms. Rachel has seen the highest engagement of any individual kids show on Netflix since they started circulating this data back in 2023.

Source: Emily Horgan, Netflix Engagement Report

And Ms. Rachel is making waves beyond kids audiences, too, ranking as one of the most-watched individual seasons across all genres for the half of 2025. That puts her ahead of some top-performing adult-targeted content, and indicates that she has become a genuine platform hit, beating out Sirens and returning series of Ginny & Georgia and The Night Agent.

Source: Netflix

When it comes to kids content specifically, Ms. Rachel ranked higher than any other individual season of kids television on Netflix so far in 2025. And she’s leading the pack by miles (though honorable mention must go to Peppa Pig, who holds significant real estate).

Source: Emily Horgan, Netflix Engagement Report

When we look at overall brand performance across multiple seasons, Ms. Rachel comes in lower than some other series, but that’s just because she only has one season on Netflix, not multiple seasons like the majority of her competitors. And Ms. Rachel is only getting started; there’s a second season in the works that will drop on Netflix in the next couple of months.

This represents a slam dunk for Netflix in terms of audience rental, and it isn’t the first time they’ve funneled YouTube’s audience: Moonbug’s CoComelon had been dominant at the streamer, although it’s due to depart for Disney+ next year. 

One edge Netflix has over YouTube when it comes to preschool audiences is the credibility of safety. Premium streaming services are curated and regulated. Parents don’t have to worry that their kids might stumble onto questionable content on Netflix the way they do with YouTube. For a digital-first IP like Ms. Rachel—and especially one that embodies wholesomeness, care and authentic consideration for young viewers—that’s the appeal of moving to a big streamer. But the reciprocal engagement value the streamer is getting in return is pretty definitive.  In the words of Ted Sarandos, “She clearly works on Netflix”.

This is crucial for licensing any established IP going forward—knowing how much value allowing another platform to rent your audience provides. It’s something for YouTube creators to keep in mind when making deals with Netflix, or even for well-established IPs that have been acquired, like Sesame Street.

The data doesn’t lie: Netflix isn’t just renting Ms. Rachel’s audience; they’re reselling it to their subscribers for premium value. As long as the deal remains mutually beneficial, we’ll soon be crowning the next monarch of Netflix’s preschool content kingdom. 

Emily Horgan is an independent kids media consultant with a specialty in streaming and YouTube. She is publisher of the Netflix Kids Content Performance Report and the Kids StreamerSphere newsletter, as well as co-host of the Kids Media Club Podcast.