There’s an ongoing query round kids’ content material in streaming: Is distribution through SVODs by myself sufficient to force franchise-degree fulfillment? This may be described as content material engagement at a vital mass of scale wherein it’s viable to significantly commercialize the IP throughout different businesses, extensively toys. Up till now there has handiest been one foremost instance of this, Spirit Riding Free from DreamWorks.
DreamWorks and Netflix
DreamWorks went all in on streaming a few years earlier than it became fashionable. Their 2013 Netflix deal noticed them devote hefty first-run home windows on TV content material assisting franchises like Shrek and Madagascar. If the streaming panorama had been a person, it likely wouldn’t consider a time while this deal wasn’t a part of the furniture.
The collaboration has visible over 1200 episodes of TV outputted. Derivative content material for The Croods, Trolls, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Boss Baby has all flowed through. There has additionally been standalone fulfillment with Guillermo del Toro’s Tales of Arcadia trilogy. Add to this the franchise rebirth of Spirit Riding Free and it’s honest to mention the partnership has been a win-win.
Editorial Pivot withinside the Deal
Following DreamWorks’ acquisition with the aid of using NBC Universal, a clean editorial pivot became visible. Series hitting Netflix commenced to diversify farfar from the DreamWorks franchise movie catalog. Derivatives from Universal Pictures had been favored, along with Fast & Furious and Jurassic Park. Alongside this shift, the proverbial streaming wars accumulated pace, with DreamWorks Animation Television furiously collecting output partners; delivered to Netflix and Amazon Prime had been Hulu and Apple TV+, in addition to NBCU’s very own SVOD, Peacock.
Even with a sizeable movie catalog to be had for inspiration, DreamWorks had to dig a bit deeper to maintain up with all this output. Although books and comics remained a relied on source, an unique preschool idea, Gabby’s Dollhouse, became greenlit. This is extraordinary withinside the cutting-edge streaming panorama wherein there’s a robust intuition to location bets on present IP. DreamWorks themselves weren’t specifically withinside the addiction of making modern day TV concepts.
Gabby’s Dollhouse Launch
In the display, we comply with Gabby, who makes use of her magical cat ears to move herself into her dollhouse wherein she is going on adventures and solves issues along a number of kitty characters. The idea unashamedly hits each possible candy spot for younger girls: lovable cats/kittens, amusing hair accessories, baking, crafting, mermaids… the listing is going on. It’s purple and sparkly in esthetic. It even has an aspirational attitude in every episode’s live-motion opening. Viewers are introduced into the display with the aid of using the marginally older Laila Lockhart Kraner. Despite developments farfar from over-gendering for kids’ media in latest years, what’s cliché continues to be frequently bullseye.
Gabby’s Dollhouse premiered on Netflix in January 2021. But wait—that isn’t the begin of the story. The collection had already gotten a few unique attention. Clips of the display had been seeded withinside the latter stop of 2020 on a YouTube channel DreamWorks had devoted to any other Netflix Original, nursery rhyme targeted Rhyme Time Town.
More than the YouTube activity, grasp toy licensee Spin Master had come on board with a plan for playsets, figures, plush, games, and puzzles. In collaboration with NBCU, they might additionally release an interactive cellular app in advance of the collection premiere.
The release of Gabby’s Dollhouse became observed some weeks later with the aid of using any other DreamWorks preschool stablemate, Go, Dog. Go! Both Gabby’s Dollhouse and Go, Dog. Go! pinged the Nielsen SVOD Top Ten round their premieres. Gabby’s Dollhouse might cross directly to chart once more at its 2nd and 1/3 season launches. Global month-to-month perspectives at the YouTube channel, now rebranded Gabby & Friends, averaged in extra of 18 million during 2021. The collection additionally featured in Netflix’s Global Hours Viewed Top 10, while those charts had been delivered withinside the 2nd 1/2 of of that yr.
Gabby’s Dollhouse Year 1 Performance
These shark fins of overall performance trace on the collection effect throughout the complete of 2021. It’s honest to mention that Gabby’s Dollhouse had a lovely display, specifically given it became strolling an insignificant 10 episodes of content material till August. In US Nielsen Streaming Ratings it got here out because the Top Original for Kids 2–11, beating Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous or even the greater mounted Boss Baby: Back in Business. Within the general ranking, it rubbed shoulders with family franchises like Peppa Pig and Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir, trumping Bluey and PJ Masks.
It holds comparable bedfellows withinside the FlixPatrol Kids Trending Top 10. Here it ranked second for 2021 globally, at the back of PAW Patrol however in advance of Peppa Pig or even the viewing behemoth this is CoComelon. Looking internationally, FIGSUK records from Digital i has Gabby’s Dollhouse as Netflix’s maximum famous Kids Original, 2nd handiest to Peppa Pig withinside the basic ranking.
Do we’ve got a brand new Netflix Original Kids franchise?
So can we have a brand new Netflix Original Kids franchise? Content overall performance metrics truly inform a advantageous story. Although we’re bereft of public benchmarks for while this has passed off earlier than, it’s clean that the numbers Gabby’s Dollhouse has visible as a yr 1 belongings are exceptional. In addition to this fulfillment, the IP had an intensive products licensing line, claiming a niche in NPD’s pinnacle 5 new toy homes in North America, with a European roll-out in hand for 2022. The belongings became referred to more than one instances in Spin Master’s state-of-the-art profits call, suggesting that they’re pretty satisfied with the commercial enterprise it has performed in 2021.
Perhaps the largest vote of self belief is from Netflix themselves. The collection became currently given a similarly 20-episode order. In the phrases of Netflix Preschool Lead Heather Tilert:
“Kids simply love the arena of Gabby’s Dollhouse.”
This is further to greenlights on new DreamWorks preschool Originals: Not Quite Narwhal, primarily based totally on a book, and Dew Drop Diaries, any other clean IP. These are clearly indicators that the Netflix–DreamWorks dating is alive and well, and that franchise-degree IP is of hobby to Netflix, even if it’s now no longer their very own.