Raphael Stevens

At a time when streaming services are eager to lure in new subscribers and decrease churn, having a hub for family-friendly content is one way to ensure paying members stick around.
The unique thing about kids content is that streamers don’t need a lot of it to keep kids occupied.
Shows like “Bluey,” an Australian production, “Peppa Pig,” a British production, “Masha and the Bear,” a Russian production and “Miraculous: Tales of Lady Bug and Cat Noir,” a French production, have managed to perform well in their native countries as well as in America.

Tinky-Winky, Laa-Laa, Dipsy and Po pose for a photo as the Teletubbies celebrate their 25th anniversary with the Lighting of the Iconic Empire State Building on April 26, 2022 in New York City.
John Lamparski | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

“Tinky Winky. Dipsy. Laa-Laa. Po!”
Those four names, the iconic sing-song intro to the “The Teletubbies,” have graced household TVs for nearly 30 years. While the library of episodes hasn’t changed in decades, their role in American media has taken on new meaning in the age of streaming.

“Back in the day TV was a little simpler,” said Dean Koocher a television expert, who spent years bringing international kids shows, including “Teletubbies” and “The Wiggles,” to the Americas.
“Back then there were less gatekeepers, you know, there was PBS, Disney and Nickelodeon was kind of an upstart coming up,” Koocher told CNBC. “The good thing was, if you ever could get their eyeballs, you had a much bigger piece of the market, because there weren’t that many choices for kids.”
Now, shows aren’t just on traditional TV and there are far more places for parents and kids to find content. From YouTube and TikTok to dozens of streaming options, audiences don’t need to wait to watch their favorite shows. Saturday morning cartoons are now everyday-anytime cartoons.
And that’s good for streamers, too, especially as Wall Street profitability pressures mount.
Kids represent a unique demographic for the entertainment industry. Age-specific advertising laws mean companies can’t market directly to them in many cases, but their viewing habits — often favoring repetition of content — makes them exceptionally loyal consumers.

At a time when streaming services are eager to lure in new subscribers and decrease churn, having a hub for family-friendly content is one way to ensure paying members (i.e. parents) stick around.
“Kids and family-friendly content is critically important to both streaming acquisition and retention,” said Peter Csathy, founder and chair of advisory firm Creative Media. “Franchise family-friendly brands are welcomed by exhausted parents looking for some down time as their kids get their screen time.
“Once those kids are hooked on a show, they never leave and will not let their parents even think of leaving,” he added.
That’s vitally important for streaming services, especially as consumers grow more cost-conscious and weigh which services to keep month after month and which services to ditch before the next billing cycle.
In recent years, legacy media companies — like Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Universal and Paramount — have scrambled to compete with Netflix in the streaming realm. For a while, Wall Street was satisfied with high subscriber growth and the promise of profitability in the future. However, as ad revenue from linear TV continued to decline significantly, investors quickly reversed course, demanding more immediate earnings growth.

Rinse, repeat

The unique thing about kids content is that streamers don’t need a lot of it to keep kids occupied, said Koocher, who now runs Kidstream, a streaming service focused on providing kids aged 2 to 9 with appropriate, enriching content.
“Young kids don’t mind repetition,” he said, noting that while adults will watch a new season of a show and then largely move on to another, kids aren’t opposed to repeat viewings in a short span of time.
“Kids are notoriously obsessed with the franchise movies, shows and characters they love, and will watch them over and over and over again,” Csathy echoed.
This means streamers don’t need to license or create as much content to keep these viewers coming back each month.
Currently, adult-only original entertainment on streaming services outnumbers TV-G or TV-PG rated content by nearly 270%, according to a study from the Parents Television and Media Council published in October.
“Seeing that less than 15% of titles on the major streamers is reportedly family-friendly, seems to me that most major streamers don’t fully embrace this reality,” said Csathy. “Franchise content is something that would be smart to prioritize. Very smart.”
A number of major streaming services have kid-centric sections of their platforms for their proprietary kids TV productions, but many have also looked outside of Hollywood to license content from international production companies for U.S. audiences.
“A child in the U.K. or a child in France or a child in Australia or the U.S. have similar wants and needs at that young age,” said Koocher. It’s only as they mature that their taste in content begins to differ.
That’s why shows like “Bluey,” an Australian production, “Peppa Pig,” a British production, “Masha and the Bear,” a Russian production and “Miraculous: Tales of Lady Bug and Cat Noir,” a French production, have managed to perform well in their native countries as well as in America.

Girl watches “Peppa Pig” on iPad tablet laying in the sofa at home.
Artur Debat | Moment Mobile | Getty Images

Meanwhile, Koocher has found that kids today are still interested in old classics like “Barney,” “Thomas the Tank Engine,” “Madeline” and “Wallace and Gromit,” all of which are available on Kidstream.
Koocher’s platform, which costs $4.99 a month, is also home to newer programming like “Dot” from Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg; the animated problem-solving duo of “Bitz & Bob;” and the live-action animal show “Gudrun: The Viking Princess.”

The future of kids content

Amid a desire from parents for more content and educational options, there’s an opportunity for artificial intelligence to help speed up the animation process.
AI not only has the potential to hasten the animation process, but it also democratizes entry into the animation space.
“Generative AI will enable the streamers to generate new kid programming much faster and cheaper, which they absolutely will do,” Csathy said. “Originality and quality is sure to suffer, but the streamers will bank on the hope that kids won’t notice.”
For Kidstream, the focus remains on quality over quantity, Koocher said.
“We’re motivated by the parent or the caregiver, whoever’s buying the services, just to be happy,” he said.
The platform, which has been around since 2017, has more than 25,000 subscribers, a fraction of the major streaming platforms. But the company can get away with fewer viewers in part because it doesn’t need to spend exponentially on new content.
Koocher, who has three decades of experience in the kids TV space, has seen the transition away from linear programming and says that audiences don’t want to return to a time-based schedule in order to watch their favorite programs, with the exception of sports.
“I can see more niche channels developing where you can really super serve your customers, whether it’s, in our case, for parents of young children or for European crime dramas,” he said, alluding to established services like BritBox and horror streamer Shudder.
“On-demand streaming, I think, is definitely the way to go.”
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. More

While many space companies battened the hatches to survive, a few publicly-traded names are running on fumes.
A trio of names appear likely going the way of Virgin Orbit, which flamed out last year: Momentus, Astra and Sidus Space.
Despite some likely turbulence ahead, the space sector as a whole isn’t necessarily struggling.

A view from onboard the upper stage of rocket LV0009 during the company’s livestream on March 15, 2022.
Astra / NASASpaceflight

The space sector’s on the tail end of a boom-and-bust cycle. While many companies battened down the hatches to survive, a few publicly-traded names are running on fumes.
A flurry of about a dozen space companies went public over the last few years. Although each have had fairly dismal stock performances since their debuts, the majority are still moving forward and look to build momentum in the year ahead, with some closing in on coveted profitability milestones.

But a trio of names appear likely to go the way of Virgin Orbit, which flamed out last year. Here’s who’s most at risk of delisting, acquisition or even bankruptcy.

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Momentus

Space tug operator Momentus has already warned shareholders that it’s running out of money, and earlier this month the company abandoned plans for its next mission.
Once valued at over $1 billion, Momentus has gone through a tumultuous couple of years. Despite a 1-for-50 stock split last year, its shares currently trade near 80 cents, putting the company at a depressed $7 million valuation.
The next few weeks will likely prove crucial for Momentus to find a major new backer or buyer, or else face bankruptcy.

Astra

Astra has been conducting piece-meal financing rounds from a handful of investors over the past couple months, as the company’s been nearly out of cash since October.

Its rocket-launching business has been on hiatus since June 2022, and its acquired spacecraft business is not driving meaningful revenue growth. And, while the company’s founders floated a take-private plan in November, there’s been no word from Astra’s board of directors on the proposal.
Once valued at over $2.5 billion, Astra’s valuation has been under $50 million for months.
Short of completing that take-private deal, it’s unclear how the company could climb out of its cash-desperate situation.

Sidus

Sidus Space is a little-known space company that went the traditional IPO route in late 2021 and began trading on the Nasdaq at a near $200 million valuation. Sidus has aimed to build its own satellite constellation as a testing or data platform for a variety of customers.
But it’s seen minimal revenue growth and rising annual net losses. While its inaugural satellite was supposed to launch in late 2022, the company has yet to get the spacecraft in orbit, most recently targeting a March launch.
Sidus has raised small amounts of funding through public stock offerings of $5 million or less since its IPO. But it had less than $2 million in cash at the end of September, trading at a near $9 million valuation according to FactSet.
Last month, Sidus performed a 1-for-100 reverse stock split to regain compliance with Nasdaq listing rules.
Momentus, Astra and Sidus did not respond to CNBC requests for comment.

Elsewhere in space

A fourth space company in a potentially precarious spot is satellite imagery company Satellogic. Its most recent financial update only dates to the end of June. At the time, Satellogic disclosed it had substantial doubt of surviving through September 2024. The company’s stock currently trades near $1.50, at a $21 million valuation.
Despite some likely turbulence ahead, the space sector as a whole isn’t necessarily struggling and continues to attract interest from the private markets. Overall, investment in the space sector bounced back in 2023, with companies bringing in $12.5 billion in investment last year.
And while industry analysts predicted a fallout from the flurry of public debuts a couple years back, it hasn’t been as severe as forecast just yet. Many space stocks are below where they were when they came to market — and in many cases well behind original financial forecasts — but most are not on death’s door.
For example, Terran Orbital won’t be near the $411 million in 2023 revenue it forecast when it was going public three years ago. But, despite its stock price trading near 80 cents at a $156 million valuation, Terran Orbital appears to have a lifeline from a key customer.
Earlier this month, Terran announced receipt of a milestone payment from its biggest customer, Rivada, and, on the same day, said its cash at year-end was $70 million, up from $39 million at the end of the third quarter. More

Vince McMahon, executive chairman of the board of TKO Group Holdings and founder of wrestling giant WWE, has resigned his positions at both companies.
The announcement came in the wake of allegations against McMahon of sexual assault and sex trafficking.
McMahon has denied the allegations.

Vince McMahon attends a press conference to announce that WWE Wrestlemania 29 will be held at MetLife Stadium in 2013 at MetLife Stadium on February 16, 2012 in East Rutherford, New Jersey.
Michael N. Todaro | Getty Images

Vince McMahon, executive chairman of the board of TKO Group Holdings and founder of wrestling giant WWE, has resigned his positions at both companies, according to a WWE memo obtained by CNBC and confirmed by the company.
“Vince McMahon has tendered his resignation from his positions as TKO Executive Chairman and on the TKO Board of Directors. He will no longer have a role with TKO Group Holdings or WWE,” said Nick Khan, president of the WWE.

The announcement came in the wake of allegations made public Thursday, of sexual assault and sex trafficking, against McMahon.
McMahon has denied the allegations. But he said in a statement late Friday that, “out of respect for the WWE Universe, the extraordinary TKO business and its board members and shareholders, partners and constituents, and all of the employees and Superstars who helped make WWE into the global leader it is today, I have decided to resign from my executive chairmanship and the TKO board of directors, effective immediately.”
The latest allegations against McMahon were in a lawsuit filed by Janel Grant — who alleges McMahon directed her to have sex with a WWE “superstar” and other men. Grant’s suit seeks to void a nondisclosure agreement Grant said she reached with McMahon in early 2022.
Grant’s suit in U.S. District Court in Connecticut says the billionaire McMahon agreed to pay her $3 million as part of that deal, but ended up only paying her $1 million in exchange for her silence about his conduct.
In addition to McMahon, 78, the complaint names as defendants WWE and John Laurinaitis, the company’s former head of talent relations and general manager.

The complaint comes six months after federal law enforcement agents executed a search warrant on McMahon and served him with a grand jury subpoena as part of an investigation into McMahon’s payment of millions of dollars to multiple women, among them Grant, after allegations of sexual misconduct.
McMahon, who resigned from WWE leadership posts in mid-2022 amid an internal company investigation, only to return as its leader in early 2023, last March paid WWE $17.4 million to cover costs of a probe of those payouts by a law firm retained by the company. More

The CEOs of Merck and Johnson & Johnson have voluntarily agreed to testify at an upcoming Senate hearing on high drug prices in the U.S., Sen. Bernie Sanders announced, after the panel planned votes to subpoena them.
The Senate Health Committee’s hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. ET.  
Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner and another unnamed pharmaceutical CEO accepted initial invitations to testify. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., holds his news conference with Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., in the Capitol on Thursday, January 25, 2024, on issuing subpoenas for pharmaceutical company CEOs to testify regarding drug prices.
Bill Clark | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

The CEOs of Merck and Johnson & Johnson have voluntarily agreed to testify at an upcoming Senate hearing on high drug prices in the U.S., Sen. Bernie Sanders announced Friday, as lawmakers ramp up efforts to rein in health-care costs for Americans. 
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8 at 10 a.m. ET.  

The panel had planned to vote to subpoena J&J CEO Joaquin Duato and Merck CEO Robert Davis to testify after both executives declined earlier requests to appear at the hearing. Those subpoenas would have been the first issued by the committee since 1981. 
Meanwhile, Bristol Myers Squibb CEO Chris Boerner and another unnamed pharmaceutical CEO agreed to initial invitations to testify. 
The panel will ask each executive to provide testimony about why their companies charge substantially higher prices for medicine in the U.S. than in other countries. The push to cut drug prices is one of the rare issues that has united both major political parties in recent years — though they have often backed different approaches to doing so.
Sanders, who chairs the Senate Health panel, noted that all three companies manufacture some of the most expensive drugs sold in the U.S., including Merck’s diabetes drug Januvia, J&J’s blood cancer treatment Imbruvica and Bristol Myers Squibb’s blood thinner Eliquis. 
All three of those treatments will be subject to the first round of Medicare drug price negotiations, a key policy under President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors. J&J, Merck and Bristol Myers Squib are all suing to halt the talks, which will establish new prices that will go into effect in 2026. 

“I hope very much that the CEOs of these major pharmaceutical companies will take a serious look at these incredible price discrepancies and work with us to substantially reduce the prices they charge the American people for these and other prescription drugs,” Sanders said in a statement Friday. 
In a statement, a Merck spokesperson said “we trust that this will be a productive hearing aimed at enhancing the committee’s understanding of the pharmaceutical industry and finding common sense solutions to the challenges facing patients.”
The company had offered its U.S. president as a witness, arguing that official was better equipped to field questions about drug pricing, according to the spokesperson. But the committee declined.
A spokesperson for J&J said the company looks forward to “building an understanding of our longstanding efforts to improve affordability and access to medicines.”
Last year, the Senate Health Committee similarly heard testimony from the CEOs of Moderna, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi on high drug prices.  More

WWE boss Vince McMahon was accused of sexual assault, trafficking, and physical and emotional abuse in a lawsuit by a woman who previously worked for the pro wrestling giant.
WWE merged last year with the mixed martial arts company UFC. Both companies are now owned by TKO Group Holdings.
TKO Group said it was taking the “horrific allegations very seriously and are addressing this matter internally.”

TKO Executive Chairman of the Board Vince McMahon is seen during a ceremony announcing Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson has joined the Board of Directors for TKO at New York Stock Exchange on January 23, 2024 in New York City.
Michelle Farsi | UFC | Getty Images

WWE boss Vince McMahon was accused in a graphic lawsuit Thursday of sexual assault, trafficking, and physical and emotional abuse of a woman who previously worked at the pro wrestling giant.
The suit by Janel Grant — which alleges McMahon directed her to have sex with a WWE “superstar” and other men — seeks to void a nondisclosure agreement Grant said she reached with McMahon in early 2022.

Grant’s suit in U.S. District Court in Connecticut says the billionaire McMahon agreed to pay her $3 million as part of that deal, but ended up only paying her $1 million in exchange for her silence about his conduct.
In addition to McMahon, 78, the complaint names as defendants WWE and John Laurinaitis, the company’s former head of talent relations and general manager.
The complaint comes six months after federal law enforcement agents executed a search warrant on McMahon and served him with a grand jury subpoena as part of an investigation into McMahon’s payment of millions of dollars to multiple women, among them Grant, after allegations of sexual misconduct.
McMahon, who resigned from WWE leadership posts in mid-2022 amid an internal company investigation, only to return as its leader in early 2023, last March paid WWE $17.4 million to cover costs of a probe of those payouts by a law firm retained by the company.
McMahon is executive chairman of the board of TKO Group Holdings, which was formed last year by a merger of his wrestling company and the mix-martial arts company UFC. He owns a significant number of shares in TKO Group.

Grant’s lawyer, Ann Callis, in a statement, said, “Today’s complaint seeks to hold accountable two WWE executives who sexually assaulted and trafficked Plaintiff Janel Grant, as well as the organization that facilitated or turned a blind eye to the abuse and then swept it under the rug.”
“She is an incredibly private and courageous person who has suffered deeply at the hands of Mr. McMahon and Mr. Laurinaitis,” Callis said. “Ms. Grant hopes that her lawsuit will prevent other women from being victimized. The organization is well aware of Mr. McMahon’s history of depraved behavior, and it’s time that they take responsibility for the misconduct of its leadership.”
A spokesman for McMahon said, ”This lawsuit is replete with lies, obscene made-up instances that never occurred, and a vindictive distortion of the truth.”
“He will vigorously defend himself,” the spokesman said.
A TKO Group spokesperson said, “Mr. McMahon does not control TKO nor does he oversee the day-to-day operations of WWE.”
“While this matter pre-dates our TKO executive team’s tenure at the company, we take Ms. Grant’s horrific allegations very seriously and are addressing this matter internally,” the TKO spokesperson said.
TKO Group on Tuesday announced that Netflix would pay $5 billion over 10 years to stream the WWE’s flagship program “Raw,” and carry all other WWE shows and specials outside the United States.
A WWE spokesman and Laurinaitis did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Grant’s suit.

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The 67-page complaint says McMahon befriended Grant, who was his neighbor in an apartment building, in 2019 after learning from the building’s resident manager that her parents had died and that she was looking for a job.
Grant alleges that McMahon soon pressured her into a sexual relationship, which she succumbed to while working at WWE’s headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut.
“When McMahon pushed Ms. Grant for a physical relationship in return for long-promised employment at WWE, she felt trapped in an impossible situation: submitting to McMahon’s sexual demands or facing ruin,” the suit says.
The suit also alleges: “Given McMahon’s omnipotent position at WWE, coercion was inherent in his increasingly depraved sexual demands.”
“Specifically, while McMahon was CEO of WWE and Ms. Grant was employed as an entry level coordinator in the legal department, McMahon recruited individuals to have sexual relations with Ms. Grant and/or with the two of them, directed Ms. Grant to visit Defendant Laurinaitis prior to the start of workdays for sexual encounters, and expected and directed Ms. Grant to engage in sexual activity at the WWE headquarters, even during working hours,” the suit says.
The complaint accuses McMahon of subjecting her to “extreme cruelty and degradation” that caused Grant to become “numb to reality to survive the horrific encounters.”
And the suit says he shared explicit photos of Grant with other WWE employees.
In January 2022, the suit says, McMahon told Grant he could no longer speak to her or be seen in the same room as her because his wife, Linda McMahon, had learned about their relationship.
“Purportedly to avoid divorce, negative publicity, and other repercussions, McMahon said that Ms. Grant’s time at WWE was at an end, but that he wanted her to sign an NDA to ensure her silence on, among other things, his personal misconduct,” the suit said.
Linda McMahon, a former top WWE executive, served as administrator of the Small Business Administration under former President Donald Trump, who himself as performed at WWE events.
The suit said that in November 2022, WWE touted the end of a “Special Committee” investigation in Vince McMahon’s alleged misconduct with women.
“Yet the Special Committee never even bothered to interview Ms. Grant or request any documents despite Ms. Grant stating that she would cooperate,” the suit said.
In addition to seeking to void the NDA, Grant’s suit also alleges violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, negligence, intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress and civil battery.
The suit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages, says that the “predatory conduct” of the defendants “has left Ms. Grant crippled, both physically and mentally, including from debilitating symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicidal ideation. More