Source: Evan Shapiro: Media War & Peace
Netflix, Disney+, and other major platforms have essentially stopped investing in original children's content—historically the stickiest audience cohort with the longest lifetime value—in favor of chasing adult subscribers and reducing production costs. This bet assumes adult churn is more solvable through prestige drama and sports than through building multigenerational households. It underestimates the economics of family plans and the competitive pressure from YouTube and TikTok, which have never stopped optimizing for kids.