Disney’s streaming service targets children

Company breaking from Netflix in 2019, sees lucrative market

As adult television viewers increasingly opt out of traditional cable, streaming services are trying to entice their kids. Familyfriendly programming is being dubbed a “front line in the streaming battle” and an “arms race over kid’s TV.”

Disney jumped ahead of the pack with plans to pull its children’s programming from Netflix in 2019 to launch its own streaming service, which the company announced Tuesday.

The Disney streaming service will feature sequels to blockbuster children’s films, including Toy Story 4, Frozen 2 and the liveaction The Lion King. It will also offer original programming aimed at younger audiences — just like its cable channel has since its 1983 launch, CNBC reported.

The move could fill a hole that other streaming services spent the past few years scrambling to fill — a lack of high-quality, family-friendly programming.

Over the years, networks and streaming services such as HBO, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hulu often created shows for adults, many of which showed graphic scenes of sex, nudity and violence. These shows left children wanting, so in the second decade of the 2000s, the companies turned their eyes to children’s programming.

Even so, the other companies have always been playing catch-up to Disney.

Research firm eMarketer found that digital video consumption among children 11 and under in the United States is expected to jump from to 74 percent in 2019 from 68 percent in 2013, the Los Angeles Times reported. It added, “At stake will be millions of dollars in subscription fees for streaming services that have the best offerings.”

If so, Disney’s new service will launch when there are more young viewers using streaming services than ever before.

That shift from traditional television to streaming services among children already appears to be occurring. As The New York Times reported, Nielsen found children between 2 and 11 watched two fewer hours of live television in 2016 than they did in 2015. Disney television has been hit particularly hard, which may have provided motivation for creating a streaming service.

The Disney Channel suffered a 28 percent drop in live-plus-seven-day prime time United States viewers during the 2016 to 2017 season, according to Quartz.