What Your Kids Are Watching This Summer

Love Island is pretty high up there (and so is Bluey).
Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Ben Symons/Peacock via Getty Images, Disney+/Everett Collection

Nielsen knows what your kids did (at the start of) this summer: spend a whole lot of time streaming Ginny & Georgia, Bluey, and … Love Island and The Rookie? Peacock’s red-hot relationship reality show and ABC’s veteran-cop drama (which streams on Hulu) are two of the more surprising titles to crack the ratings giant’s list of most-watched streaming titles this June among kids age 6 to 17 and teens age 12 to 17. Nielsen’s demographic deep dive is being revealed first on Vulture.

Source: Nielsen streaming data May 26-June 29.

It will come as no surprise to anyone with kids that little ones love them some Bluey: Disney’s animated wonder racked up 895 million minutes watched last month, finishing No. 2 on the overall kids 6–17 list. But the kiddos clearly move on as they get older, since Bluey doesn’t show up at all on Nielsen’s top-ten list for teens 12–17. By contrast, Netflix’s Ginny & Georgia is a bit broader in its appeal, though it clearly skews older. The show, which would have fit perfectly on the WB back in the day, racked up 1.425 billion minutes of viewing among all kids, with 1.06 billion minutes — about 74 percent of its total 6–17 audience — generated just by teens. The most recent season of G & G is a massive hit among older viewers, too, of course, racking up north of 8 billion minutes overall last month. But it definitely overperforms among teens: Even though they make up 8 percent of all U.S. viewers, through the first three weeks of June, they accounted for 10 percent of all G & G viewing, Nielsen says.

Source: Nielsen streaming data May 26-June 29.

And then there are those shows that might not seem like slam dunks to rank as big hits with Generation Alpha. Despite the cliché that kids have no interest in broadcast TV shows, the data from last month — as it has before — suggests they’re just not fond of watching those series on linear TV channels. The Rookie, ABC’s Nathan Fillion–led cop drama that’s been on the air since 2018, ranked No. 5 among teens in terms of overall streaming on TV sets last month, with 299 million minutes watched — more than any other network show, including Young Sheldon (No. 9) and Grey’s Anatomy (No. 10). Among the broader audience of kids 6–17, Rookie and Grey’s didn’t make the top ten, but Young Sheldon did. As with all titles on Nielsen’s most-streamed lists, which measure overall viewing vs. viewing per episode, all three shows are helped by the fact that they have deep libraries of more than 100 episodes.

That quirk in Nielsen’s methodology also partially explains the presence of Love Island on Nielsen’s kids’ snapshot. Peacock’s steamy hit premieres new hour-long episodes six days a week, with 25 hours of originals debuting in June — on top of the 100-plus episodes from three previous seasons, which also count toward Nielsen’s tally. But even so, the overall numbers suggest that a decent number of teens were very invested in the Islanders’ shenanigans: The series ranked No. 4 among teens, nearly double the viewership of Grey’s, which has almost 450 episodes available to watch and streams on two big platforms (Hulu and Netflix). For parents worried about the elementary-school set being corrupted by the lustful goings-on at Love Island, the good news is that nearly all of the show’s kids’ viewership (424 million out of 474 million minutes streamed) was among the 12-and-up crowd. (Also, a reminder: Peacock, like all major streamers, has parental controls that let parents set a PIN code so little ones don’t accidentally stumble into Casa Amor at the wrong moment.)

Some other interesting nuggets from Nielsen’s June kid-vid report:

➼ This isn’t new information, but it’s still a bit stunning to see just how little time kids these days spend watching linear TV channels — especially in a month like June, when network lineups are dominated by reruns. Per Nielsen, broadcast channels accounted for a puny 4.1 percent of all TV viewing among viewers aged 6-17, while cable (remember that?) wasn’t much better, with a 6.1 percent share. Streaming (everything from Netflix to YouTube) unsurprisingly dominated, capturing a full two-thirds of kids’ TV viewing time, while even “other” — which captures time spent playing video games, among other distractions — trounced linear, with a 23.2 percent share. By contrast, among the total population of U.S. viewers, linear —while no longer dominant — still captured a respectable 42 percent of all viewing on TV screens last month, with cable’s hundreds of channels (23.4 percent) edging out broadcast’s relative handful of networks (18.5 percent).

➼ As it is with adults, Netflix’s very intense Squid Game is a hit among the youth: It landed in both top-ten lists even though season three’s final batch of episodes dropped June 27, allowing for just four days of viewership to count in the overall tally. Had it premiered at the start of the month, like Ginny & Georgia, it’s quite possible the series would’ve snagged the No. 1 crown, at least with teens.

➼ Even though it premiered when some of the kids in this sample had not yet been born, Netflix’s Stranger Things — which hasn’t released a new episode in three years — landed at No. 3 with teens and No. 7 with all kids. The show also surged on Nielsen’s overall charts last month, most likely because of all the attention Netflix’s Tudum preview event (and a new teaser) brought to the show. Marketing: It works!

➼ Millennial and Gen-Z parents are teaching their children well: Old-school faves SpongeBob SquarePants and Alvin!!! And the Chipmunks (a 2015 TV reboot based on the ’50s musical icons) both made the overall kids’ top ten. While SpongeBob does well with teens and even older adults, Alvin!!!, as expected, got most of its viewing (79 percent) from kids 6–11.