Los Gatos-based Netflix is making a play for the kiddie crowd, striking a deal with Scholastic Media to bring its movies and TV shows to Netflix's streaming video service.
Netflix already has Scholastic's “The Magic School Bus" and “Goosebumps" kid shows for its customers in the United States and Canada. As part of the new deal, Netflix will add videos based on popular children's books such as “Harry the Dirty Dog," “The Very Hungry Caterpillar" and “The Snowy Day."
Earlier this year, Netflix lost Nickelodeon programs "SpongeBob SquarePants," "Dora the Explorer," "Blue's Clues" and other children's shows when it declined to renew a deal with Viacom. Customers were upset, and Amazon, which has a streaming video service of its own, picked up the rights to the Nickelodeon shows soon after.
In response, Netflix has been making deals to bring more kids' content in from Disney, DreamWorks Animation and recently PBS. The latter deal gives it exclusive rights to the kid show “Super Why" and adds other content for kids.