If you were to search Hulu or Disney+ right now, you would find 15 episodes of “KidCity Ultimate Mishmatch,” a 2023 children’s series based on the KidCity YouTube channel. The wildest part about this series? Its creators barely had to do anything to make it available on Disney+.
“It is a residual passive income,” Michael, who created the YouTube channel KidCity (3 million subscribers) alongside his wife Aryn, told TheWrap. Both Michael and Aryn asked to be only referred to by their first names. “We try to live as normal of a family life as we can. The kids are in school. We create a lot in the summer when the kids aren’t playing sports or in theater or something like that. As long as we can stay in a creative zone when we can and let [a secondary company] handle some of the distribution headaches, then we can keep creating for longer.”
KidCity is an example of a growing wave of children’s and family creators who are repackaging their YouTube channels as new content for streamers. The best known of these shows is Netflix’s “Ms. Rachel.” The real Ms. Rachel has over 16 million subscribers on YouTube, and her Netflix series matched those impressive stats, coming in as the seventh most-watched TV show on the platform in the first half of 2025 and securing over 53.4 million views. “Ms. Rachel” has also consistently reached Netflix’s Global Top 10 list and the Top 10 list in the U.S. since it launched in February. Yet, just like with KidCity, nearly every second of her Netflix show was repackaged content from YouTube.
It’s a new way for streamers to capitalize on the creator economy and for streamers to more easily bulk up their libraries. Now, instead of solely relying on exclusive deals or paying for the production of new shows, these companies can add content that’s been validated by millions of views and likes directly to their platform.
“YouTube is the most democratic platform for video and IP in the history of time,” Chris M. Williams, the founder and CEO of the children’s and family creator studio Pocket.watch, told TheWrap. “There are 20 million videos uploaded every day.”
Creating this niche ecosystem
Pocket.watch is a leader among studios that specialize in broadening the reach and earning potential of kids and family creators. Depending on the ambitions of their partners, that could mean anything from putting their content on a major streamer like Disney+ or helping them launch a toy line. The company was named one of Time100’s most influential companies of 2025 and works with major YouTube creators like Ryan’s World (39.8 million subscribers), Toys and Colors (78.6 million), Love, Diana (11.2 million) and, yes, KidCity.
“If talented creators come up through [YouTube], and they end up at the top with a massive audience that loves them, it’s not because they’re lucky … It’s because they found magic, the same type of magic that leads to art or film being successful,” Williams said. When that same IP is taken from an environment that has 20 million new videos a day and placed into one that only has about 5,000 videos total, it performs.
And there’s proof of this success. Pocket.watch now has over 30 shows from its creators on Hulu, double the amount the streamer had in 2023. As for Peacock, viewership for the studio’s shows on that platform increased fivefold compared to 2024.
Meanwhile, Netflix, which doesn’t have a partnership with the studio, has increased its bet on kid-focused creators, launching a second season of “Ms. Rachel” earlier this month made of former content she’s published. It’s also launching Season 2 of “Blippi’s Job Show” on Sept. 22 — a show that is entirely exclusive to Netflix.
It’s a proposition that’s a win-win-win for streamers, creators and parents. While streamers get children’s programming that’s already been market tested and approved, creators get a new revenue stream that doesn’t require much work on their part. As for parents, they can let their kids watch their favorite creators in the safe confines of a trusted streaming service without worrying about what the YouTube algorithm may play next, a major concern when it comes to children’s entertainment.
It’s also a winning combination that’s gaining more popularity as cable, which has long served as a leader in the children’s space thanks to Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Disney Channel, has been steadily declining. From 2015 to 2024, the number of pay-TV households dropped by 26% to hit 70 million households, according to Leichtman Research Group. Harming the market even more is the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the government organization that funds one of the leaders in educational children’s entertainment, PBS.
Kids TV Is Dead, Long Live Kids TV
“[With the decline of] kids’ cable channels, there’s fewer and fewer opportunities for kids to engage with content in a safe environment,” Vikrant Mathur, founder of the video distribution company Future Today, which includes the over-the-top channel HappyKids, told TheWrap. “I feel like we all need to work together to have more safe spaces for kids to engage and consume content. Otherwise we are pushing them to go to places like TikTok or YouTube where it’s not very well controlled.”
How to make a streaming-ready show
It all starts with partnering with reliable creators.
“If you’re one of these big streaming platforms, you don’t want to take a risk that someone goes off the rails and creates PR nightmares for you because their content’s on your server,” Williams explained. That’s why Pocket.watch carefully sifts through potential creative partners, refusing to work with parents who seem like they’re pressuring their children to perform or who don’t set aside money for their underage stars. If a creator has a second channel focused on their personal life, that’s a no-no.
After those creators are chosen, the content then needs to be analyzed. Pocket.watch has repackaged creator content for streamers since 2018 and distributed roughly 450 episodes of creator content to distribution partners like Hulu, Peacock and Disney+. The company starts making new episodes by feeding creator content into its proprietary AI tool, which examines their libraries for potential edits the team may have to make. Those include highlighting sponsorship deals or calls to action that have to be removed as well as any part of the video that may look “overly commercialized.”
Following the AI pass, the team then looks at the content and gives it an edit to make sure it passes the standards and practices regulations for streamers. The team also identifies music rights and third party actors who need to be cleared.
Only after all these clips have been made “streaming ready” does the studio go in and look for thematic similarities to create a 22-minute episode, a longer format that is better suited for TV than the shorter videos typically found on YouTube. Once an episode is pieced together, the company adds in graphics, sounds and transitions to make the final product look more cohesive. At this point the creators are brought back in to give feedback and provide voiceovers.
“Sometimes we get together as a family, sit on the couch and it’s almost like one of those reminiscing episodes of a sitcom,” KidCity’s Michael said.
Proven and vetted kids’ content
As TheWrap has previously covered, children have been flocking to YouTube creators. But even with the platform’s increased safety measures and the limitations of YouTube Kids, some parents are hesitant about the platform. Putting proven names like Ms. Rachel, Blippi and Ryan’s World on premium streamers lets kids watch their favorite stars in a more controlled digital environment.
“Parents have been media-shamed for 20 years now that everything on YouTube is bad, so the expansion of these brands onto premium streaming platforms is really important,” Williams said. “And we also find that it doesn’t cannibalize YouTube [views].”
Michael agreed with that assessment. “Once you start to spread out on platforms this way, parents can find you elsewhere on different platforms,” he said.
And more big-name streamers are opening up to the idea of bringing in digital creators. During the company’s second quarter earnings call, Co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos noted that Netflix is interested in being in business with “the best creatives on the planet, regardless of where they come from.”
“For those creators doing great work, we have phenomenal distribution, desirable monetization, brilliant discovery in our UI and a hungry audience waiting to be entertained,” Sarandos continued, noting that it’s true that not everything on YouTube will click on Netflix. “But there are some creators on YouTube like Ms. Rachel that are a great fit.”
Diversification and residual revenue
Though most creators consider YouTube to be their home base, even the most stable of the social media platforms can prove to be challenging for children’s and family creators. In 2021, YouTube changed its monetization rules for kids’ and family content creators, requiring those channels to follow stricter guidelines.
That’s around the time KidCity started looking for other possible revenue streams and began its partnership with Pocket.watch. As the years have gone on, the company has served as a middleman of sorts between its creator partners and the streamers, making connections that the two parties likely wouldn’t make on their own.
“The benefit really is in diversifying income streams for creators,” Michael said.
A big reason why it’s so difficult for creators to make money is because goods and services that appeal to kids are often cheap. These videos have advertising for a Super Soaker, not an Audi.
“Children’s content is challenging from a monetization standpoint because the CPMs are very low,” Alphonse Lordo, a partner at Content Partners Capital, told TheWrap. CPC specializes in lending private credit to the content space. “It’s a space that garners huge audiences, but the advertising economics are tough, which is why structuring deals in that segment requires a more creative approach.”
Though brands can be built on YouTube, those lower CPMs mean that it’s more profitable for children’s and family creators to get off of YouTube and move into licensing their content. Streamers, networks and channels that are looking for engaging kids’ content to draw in younger viewers will sometimes pay more than creators can make on their own.
Michael doesn’t just see his partnership with these streamers as a secondary source of income. He sees it as the industry’s future as it becomes harder for consumers to rely on one platform during an era of shifting algorithms.
“I think we’re going to get to a place in a year or two or three where the deals are Shonda Rhimes-sized deals,” Williams said. “2026 will see a greater expansion of creator content on these premium platforms. The ones that succeed there are going to be really handsomely rewarded financially in the coming decade.”
