Re: Cocomelon Videos
Carey Jangam
Ever since this successful rebrand, Cocomelon has broadened their horizons to include multiple platforms and languages. Nine episodes were put on Netflix in 2020 and the show finds itself on the Daily Top 10 list of most watched programs almost every day. In 2020 the channel added videos in Spanish and Portuguese. Earlier this year they added Mandarin Chinese, Arabic, and German. They even have videos on another channel with sign language!
A jury found BabyBus liable for infringing on CoComelon's trademarks with its "Super JoJo" brand. The company also lost a misrepresentation claim and will have to pay $17.7 million in damages to Moonbug Entertainment Limited and Treasure Studio, the creators behind CoComelon.
BabyBus subsequently filed post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial. But Chen, in a 53-page order, denied both motions, saying that clips and videos in evidence showed that BabyBus had violated copyrights on songs, characters and plots.
Cocomelon (/koʊkoʊmɛlən/, stylized as CoComelon) is an American YouTube channel owned by the British company Moonbug Entertainment and maintained by the American company Treasure Studio. Cocomelon specializes in 3D animation videos of both traditional nursery rhymes and their own original children's songs. As of May 2024, Cocomelon is the 3rd most-subscribed and 2nd most-viewed channel on YouTube.
Cocomelon's videos feature children, adults, and animals who interact with each other in daily life. The lyrics appear at the bottom of the screen in the same way on all displays. In 2020, Treasure Studio added Cocomelon content to Netflix, Roku, and Hulu.[2][3] The company also delivers music through popular streaming services.[4] YouTube's content consists of standalone music videos, compilations, and livestreams.
In 2013, after several years of making content for Jay Jeon's children, Treasure Studio began the ABC Kid TV era which introduced a new intro and logo to start a fresh new look to expand their brand. The logo showed a TV with a ladybug in the upper left corner. The channel began remastering older videos, followed by a transition from alphabet videos to nursery rhymes and longer video lengths.[7] Within a few years, the channel introduced computer animation, with their first 3D character being used in Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on April 8, 2016. The video featured a 3D flying star guiding 2D characters through the sky. Towards the end of 2016, 3D animation video uploads became more frequent and longer, with some videos using motion capture technology. Animation and music production continued to modernize, and a recurring cast of characters formed before the 2018 rebrand. [8]
In the summer of 2018, the channel rebranded again to Cocomelon, introducing a new intro and outro to all their videos. They also added the logo of a watermelon stylized to resemble a traditional box TV, while retaining the ladybug as part of the opening and closing sequences.
In April 2019, The Wall Street Journal estimated Cocomelon's yearly ad revenue at $120 million.[9] In late 2020, Cocomelon added content in Spanish and Portuguese.[10][11] Early in 2021, they also added Mandarin Chinese, German, and Arabic.[12][13][14]
Nina Reyes, who first appeared on the show in 2019, got her own show, Nina's Familia, a bilingual series following the format of the original, with educational songs and nursery rhymes. The spinoff, to start on September 29, 2023, was intended both for children who knew Spanish and for those who did not, and care was taken to make sure Latino culture was well represented.[15]
In July 2020, Jeon sold his company, Treasure Studio, to Moonbug, which had been founded just two years earlier.[16] Moonbug expanded the show to more audiences, inking deals with platforms in South Korea, China, and Europe.
A range of toys, including plush dolls and toy vehicles, were announced in February 2020.[17] Expected for shipment during August 2020,[18][19] the company began selling apparel directly through their website during December 2020.[20]
After nine years on YouTube, Cocomelon reached 1 million subscribers on May 16, 2016; it reached one billion total views later in the same month. The channel grew rapidly following the July 2017 release of "Yes Yes" Bedtime Song, a video in which TomTom has to use stuffed animals to get JJ to prepare for bed; "Yes Yes" became Cocomelon's most-viewed video, with over 1 billion views.
Cocomelon had the second-largest YouTube channel subscription gain in 2019, according to Business Insider, with an increase of over 36 million, ending the year on 67.4 million in channel subscriptions.[21] In 2018, YouTube's algorithm recommended Cocomelon's video "Bath Song + More Nursery Rhymes & Kids Songs" 650 times "among the 696,468 suggestions that Pew Research Center tracked" making it the most recommended video in the research project.[22][23] As of September 2020, that video has received over 3.2 billion views on YouTube, making it the 19th-most-viewed video on the site.[24] In addition, Cocomelon's second-most popular video, "Yes Yes Vegetables Song", has received over 2.5 billion views, making it the 36th-most-viewed video on the site.[24]
Between May and June 2019, Cocomelon received 2.5 billion total views, averaging 83 million daily viewers worldwide. Comparatively, the "major four [American] TV broadcast networks averaged just 13 million viewers daily during the TV season".[25] In July 2019, YouTube changed its algorithm after the Federal Trade Commission raised concerns over child safety. Several children's channels were affected, including Cocomelon, which "dropped from 575 million total views the week before the change, to 436 million the week of, to 307 million the week after, and 282 million the week after that".[26]
It was predicted Cocomelon would surpass PewDiePie at some point in April or May 2021, becoming the second-most subscribed YouTube channel.[29][30][31] In response to this, PewDiePie released "Coco," a diss track targeted at Cocomelon on February 14, 2021. The video was removed from YouTube shortly after its upload; YouTube cited its harassment and cyberbullying policy as the reason for the video being taken down.[32][33] Two months later, on April 25, 2021, Cocomelon surpassed PewDiePie as predicted. The song "Coco" remains on major streaming platforms.
Cocomelon has been involved in the Riyadh Season 2021 show in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, where the companies Spacetoon Event and Moonbug Entertainment collaborated with the Saudi General Entertainment Authority to bring the Cocomelon Town show for 3 months.[34][35]
Although Cocomelon's website in 2019 described the company as having 20 employees,[6] the identity of the founders is unknown. When The Wall Street Journal attempted to find out who creates Cocomelon videos, they were unable to contact Treasure Studio, which owns the channel.[39] Wired magazine located a couple in Irvine, California who seemed to have some ties with Treasure Studio, but was unable to confirm that they owned the channel.[40] During February 2020, Bloomberg Businessweek identified a couple from Orange County, California as the owners of Treasure Studio and Cocomelon.[41] The question of original ownership is of historical interest; Cocomelon was purchased during 2020 by the children's new media conglomerate Moonbug,[19] which was itself acquired by Candle Media during 2022.[42]
Kids and adults model positive relationships and pro-social behavior. Representation could be better -- while the main character's preschool friends are racially diverse, the featured family is white and gender representations are fairly stereotypical.
Parents need to know that the CoComelon TV series is very similar to the wildly popular animated music videos CoComelon publishes on YouTube. The music videos are appropriate for the very youngest of viewers, and touch on typical preschool themes. While not egregious, representation could be better -- while the main character's preschool friends are racially diverse, the featured family is white and gender representations are fairly stereotypical throughout.
COCOMELON is the Netflix version of YouTube's most popular American channel (with 92 million+ subscribers). Each one-hour episode features around 20 songs for toddlers and preschoolers. Every music video features the main character J.J., his family, and his classmates. Some of the songs in each episode are classic nursery rhymes like "Ba Ba Black Sheep" and "Five Little Monkeys." Many of the songs are new CoComelon originals that introduce toddler-appropriate topics like numbers, letters, careers, dinosaurs, and more. Others talk about important parts of toddlers' lives, like going to school, nap time, and grandparents. The visuals that go along with each of the songs is a mini story about J.J.'s life at home or at school.
Toddlers and young preschoolers will love these music videos because they are such a close reflection of their lives. They show main character J.J. doing regular toddler things like spending time with family, taking a nap, and learning things at preschool. The songs themselves are slow and simple enough that young kids can actually understand the lyrics and learn things from them. Many of the songs also do a great job modeling positive behavior like helping friends or caring for animals, and many also help kids name emotions like fear or sadness.
Overall, these are songs that young kids love and parents can feel good about them watching, but there are a few inconsistencies with CoComelon. The characters appear to be about 1 year old, but are shown doing things in school like cutting with scissors, or playing tug-of-war. They also babble like babies most of the time, but will break into full sentences randomly. The show does have examples of counter-stereotypes, but it also features a fair amount of gender stereotypes (Dad teaches kids how to throw a ball and fix things, boys are firefighters and construction workers on career day, etc.). The kids at school are racially diverse, but the main characters are all white. Also, the hour-long format may be difficult for parents who limit screen time, as there's not a natural stopping point in the episode and young kids may have a hard time turning the songs off.
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