Back on Nov. 1, kids TV and film production focused news site Kidscreen reported that UK-based Moonbug Entertainment, producer of Netflix’s wildly popular series CoComelon, had laid off writing staff from the show.
And on Sunday, Bloomberg published excerpts from an interview with Andy Yeatman, who heads Moonbug’s U.S. business, confirming that the company is indeed “cutting back” and redirecting resources after previously embarking on aggressive expansion.
“We’ve decided to make a little less content,” Yeatman said, adding that the company will now focus a bit more on video games and music.
Also read: Moonbug, Producer of Netflix’s Mega-Popular ‘Cocomelon,’ Sold to Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs
Bloomberg reported that 30 jobs representing about 5% of Moonbug’s workforce were cut. Most of CocoMelon‘s writing staff was let go, with the workload now handled by overseas third-party studios.
The company has reportedly hired Canada’s Mainframe Studios and India’s Green Gold Animation Pvt., among other shops, to take on animation for its various properties.
A Moonbug press rep didn’t immediately respond to Next TV‘s email seeking comment and confirmation.
Moonbug was purchased in 2021 by entertainment moguls Kevin Mayer and Tom Skaggs, with backing by Blackstone Inc., for a reported $3 billion. It’s privately funded, so it’s hard to gauge the financial trajectory of the company.
But business can’t be that bad.
Moonbug’s “CoComelon — Nursery Rhymes” YouTube channel has 168 million subscribers. And Netflix’s CoComelon series has been one of the most popular offerings on the top SVOD platform for several years. In fact, the season 1 debut of spinoff series CoComelon Lane was the fourth most watched English-language TV show on Netflix for the week of Nov. 20-26.
Bloomberg said that the flagship CoComelon was the third most watched show in all of U.S. streaming last year, trailing only Stranger Things and NCIS.
So what does it say for the broader video entertainment industry that even the jobs behind this particularly successful franchise aren’t safe? Probably nothing good.