Netflix and Amazon Continue Pursuit of Younger Audience

Netflix today announced the launch of Netflix Families, a new destination site intended to promote Netflix’s family-friendly offerings. The website features Netflix recommendations for parents and children, streaming tips and promotional content. Also, Amazon announced that it has added more than a thousand books, games, educational apps, movies and TV shows to its Kindle FreeTime Unlimited, including kids’ titles from Disney, Warner Bros. and Electronic Arts.

“These moves come at a time when the war for streaming is heating up between Netflix and up-and-coming rival Amazon Prime Instant Video,” reports TechCrunch. “Earlier this month, Amazon picked up the Viacom shows Netflix lost, including big-name kids’ TV brands like ‘Dora the Explorer,’ ‘Go Diego Go!,’ ‘SpongeBob SquarePants,’ ‘Blue’s Clues’ and several others.”

In addition to the new Families site, Netflix announced a multiyear original content deal with DreamWorks Animation, and recently landed other kids’ TV deals for shows such as Cartoon Network’s “Adventure Time” and “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” from Disney.

Amazon launched Kindle FreeTime Unlimited six months ago with the intent to target parents with children 3-8 years of age.

“Neither Amazon nor Netflix’s announcement today is the equivalent of what one would call major news, of course. One is a destination site to educate and promote Netflix’s children’s programming, while the other is an update on what’s available with Kindle FreeTime Unlimited,” notes TechCrunch.

“What is interesting about the news is that both companies seemed to have decided that where the children go, so go the parents. The war for streaming is resting on families’ youngest members — a generation of viewers who have born into a world where tablets already exist, and who can navigate their way around the devices better than their parents in many cases. It’s these little ones the streaming giants will now be catering to.”

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