Kids Media Club Podcast Podcast By Jo Redfern Andrew Williams & Emily Horgan cover art

Kids Media Club Podcast

Kids Media Club Podcast

By: Jo Redfern Andrew Williams & Emily Horgan
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Kids Media Club Podcast is a podcast hosted by Jo Redfern, Andy Williams, and Emily Horgan. In each episode they chat with a different guest about the world of Kids Media. The podcast covers everything from trends in animation to the rise of Edtech.Copyright 2022 Kids Media Club Podcast Economics Marketing Marketing & Sales Politics & Government
Episodes
  • Netflix Kids Content: Paw Patrol, SpongeBob, Cocomelon and What the 2025 Streaming Data Really Tells Us — with Emily

    Netflix Kids Content: Paw Patrol, SpongeBob, Cocomelon and What the 2025 Streaming Data Really Tells Us — with Emily
    Mar 20 2026
    This bonus episode of the Kids Media Club sees Andy and Jo joined by Emily, who has just published her latest Netflix Kids Content Performance Report — a deep dive into Netflix's engagement data covering the second half of 2025. It's a data-rich conversation that covers which shows are winning, which are declining, and what it all means for the wider kids content landscape.The headline finding is that Paw Patrol has taken the number one spot by hours viewed in H2 2025, driven by its first-ever US Netflix window opening in July. It's a significant moment that underscores just how competitive the preschool segment has become — Gabby's Dollhouse held the top spot in H1, Ms. Rachel has climbed from sixth to fourth place, and Cocomelon, while still enormous, is showing signs of decline. The preschool race, as Emily puts it, is very much a ten or fifteen horse race.Sesame Street's arrival on Netflix gets a thoughtful treatment. Launching with just four episodes, it performed modestly — and the group unpick why. Is it a volume problem? A brand perception issue, with audiences still associating the show firmly with PBS and YouTube rather than Netflix? Or simply that Sesame Street hasn't yet established a home on the platform? Emily is generous in her read of it, noting the brand's smart collaboration with YouTube creator Mark Rober as a savvy move to stay relevant — and Rober's own Netflix show, Crunch Lab, posted strong launch numbers.That leads into a broader conversation about Netflix's creator economy strategy. The platform has been quietly building a pipeline of YouTube-native talent — Cocomelon, Little Angel, Blippi, Ms. Rachel, and now Mark Rober — and the data suggests the crossover approach is paying off in engagement terms. Jo raises the interesting point that Netflix appeared to step back from kids originals after disbanding its dedicated team, only to start commissioning original and exclusive content with creator talent again. The consensus is that Netflix never fully stepped away — it just got more selective, leaning into broader "family" content alongside its core kids slate.SpongeBob emerges as one of the episode's most interesting talking points. Generating 143 million hours viewed on Netflix without a US window, Emily argues the Sponge is quietly having a moment that the industry isn't talking about loudly enough. She floats the prediction that SpongeBob could overtake Bluey as the top kids show in US streaming in 2026 — and notes what the strength of both SpongeBob and the Warner animation catalog (Teen Titans Go, The Amazing World of Gumball) could mean in the context of the Paramount-Warner merger.The deeper theme running through the episode is the extraordinary durability of long-running IP. Paw Patrol at 15 years old, SpongeBob at 25, Peppa at 20 — these shows have entered a multigenerational pass-down mode where they remain fresh enough for new young audiences while carrying nostalgia value for older ones. For anyone trying to break through with a new show, that's the competitive reality they're up against.The episode closes with a look at Gabby's Dollhouse's prospects for long-term franchise status, and a frank assessment of Cocomelon's decline — which Emily argues is structural rather than a failure of execution, given how narrowly age-targeted the IP is by design.Key Takeaways:Paw Patrol is Netflix's most-viewed kids show in H2 2025, powered by its US streaming debut — a clear illustration of how much a new territory window can move the needle on an established IP.Preschool is the most competitive segment on Netflix, with Gabby's Dollhouse, Ms. Rachel, Paw Patrol, and Cocomelon all jostling for position. No single show dominates the full year.Sesame Street's modest debut was likely a volume and perception problem — four episodes is thin for a brand of its stature, and audiences may not yet associate it with Netflix given its long history on PBS and YouTube.Netflix's creator-to-streaming pipeline is working — shows like Ms. Rachel and Mark Rober's Crunch Lab demonstrate that YouTube-native talent can drive strong streaming engagement, and Netflix appears to be doubling down on that strategy with original commissions.SpongeBob is underrated in the industry conversation — top animated comedy globally on Netflix without US distribution, and a genuine contender to be the number one kids streaming show in the US in 2026.Long-running, multigenerational IP is the hardest thing to compete with — shows like SpongeBob, Peppa, and Paw Patrol are being passed down from parents who grew up with them, giving them a structural advantage that newer shows simply don't have yet.Cocomelon's decline is structural, not a crisis — its very young target demographic limits its ability to build the multigenerational audience that sustains IP over the long term. Still huge; just not built to grow the way story-driven shows can.Gabby's Dollhouse has genuine franchise longevity ...
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    30 mins
  • Kids Online Safety, Club Penguin's Moderation Playbook, and Why Roblox Is the New Console — with Chris Heatherly (Part 2)

    Kids Online Safety, Club Penguin's Moderation Playbook, and Why Roblox Is the New Console — with Chris Heatherly (Part 2)
    Mar 19 2026

    Takeaways:

    1. The Kids Media Club podcast is currently accepting sponsorship opportunities for interested parties.
    2. Listeners can engage with the podcast via LinkedIn or the official website for strategic conversations.
    3. Chris Heatherly, an influential figure at Disney, shared profound insights during our discussion on children's online safety.
    4. The conversation surrounding online safety for children remains critical and unresolved after two decades.
    5. The challenges faced by Club Penguin in moderating content are similar to those currently confronted by Roblox.
    6. We believe that empowering parents to monitor their children's online activity is essential for ensuring their safety.

    Links referenced in this episode:

    1. kidsmediaclubpodcast.com

    Companies mentioned in this episode:

    1. Disney
    2. Club Penguin
    3. Roblox
    4. Pinterest
    5. Sago Sago
    6. Takaboka
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    34 mins
  • Club Penguin: The Game That Could Have Been Roblox — Inside Disney's Most Beloved (and Misunderstood) Platform | Part 1

    Club Penguin: The Game That Could Have Been Roblox — Inside Disney's Most Beloved (and Misunderstood) Platform | Part 1
    Mar 12 2026

    In this episode, Andy, Jo and Emily sit down with Chris Heatherly — former Disney executive, Club Penguin General Manager, and the man who ran the world's biggest kids' playground for nearly a decade. What follows is a candid, fascinating look at one of kids media's great "what ifs."

    Chris traces his journey from overseeing Disney's toy business to becoming the custodian of Club Penguin, the safe, customisable multiplayer world that, at its peak, boasted 200 million registered avatars and 300,000 concurrent players. He talks about the early days of the platform, the innovative toy-to-game codes that predated today's digital unlocks, and how a fan-created myth about blurry in-game artwork spawned Card Jitsu — a trading card game that briefly outsold Pokémon at Toys R Us.

    But the conversation goes deeper than nostalgia. Chris reflects honestly on why Club Penguin was ultimately shut down in 2017: a combination of the mobile transition (Club Penguin was built by artists who could code, not engineers), Disney's wider mismanagement of its games portfolio, and — perhaps most tellingly — corporate leadership that simply didn't understand the value of community. "I had suits ask me, 'what's the value of community?'" he recalls. It's a question that still stings, given what platforms built on exactly that principle are worth today.

    There's also a moving thread running through the episode about what Club Penguin was really for. Chris describes a mission to protect children's innocence in a media landscape that's constantly pushing maturity down to younger audiences. He shares a quote from a focus group participant — a girl who said that at school she wasn't the most popular, but on Club Penguin she could be whoever she wanted — that became the team's north star. That ethos extended to the platform's charity work too, with millions donated through the Coins for Change initiative, and an unusually rigorous commitment to making sure the money actually made an impact.

    Club Penguin may be gone, but as Chris points out, pirate servers running the game today have more active players than ever played during its official peak — and a new generation of lore has grown up entirely after his time. The nostalgia is real, and it's earned.

    Key Takeaways

    1. Community is a product feature, not a side effect. Club Penguin's lasting cultural impact came from genuine human connection — moderators who replied to kids' emails, a team that listened to its audience, and leadership that treated the playground metaphor seriously. Platforms that stripped out those elements to cut costs never managed to replicate the magic.
    2. Artists who code build differently than engineers who design. Club Penguin's charm came from its creative-led origins. The comparison with Disney Infinity — a technology-first project — is instructive: one is still talked about with affection; the other isn't.
    3. User-generated culture is powerful, and ignoring it is expensive. Card Jitsu, one of Club Penguin's biggest hits, came directly from fan speculation. Disney's corporate structure struggled to understand how a platform could generate its own IP from the ground up — a lesson that Roblox and Minecraft would later prove at enormous scale.
    4. Corporate short-termism kills long-term value. The decision to shut down Club Penguin is presented here as one of the clearest examples of a business prioritising spreadsheet logic over strategic vision. Chris left Disney partly because he refused to be the one to close it.
    5. Protecting children's innocence is a genuine editorial position — and a commercially sound one. The longevity of Club Penguin's cultural footprint suggests that audiences — and their parents — are hungry for platforms that hold that line.

    1. Part two of this conversation continues next week.
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    28 mins
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