Little Baby Bum (also known as LBB and LittleBabyBum) is a British children's CGI-animated web series created in 2011 by Cannis Holder and her husband, Derek Holder.[2] The show revolves around Mia, a young girl, her family, peers and a group of anthropomorphic characters. The format of the show is 3D animated videos of both traditional nursery rhymes and original children's songs, but with a modern aesthetic,[3] supporting child development of language through song and repetition. It was acquired by Moonbug Entertainment in 2018. The show is available on YouTube,[4] BBC iPlayer,[5][6] and distributed across SVOD[7] and AVOD players,[8] and over 40 platforms including Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu.[9] Little Baby Bum is available in English, Spanish, Dutch, Brazilian Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Polish, German, French, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Turkish.[10]

Little Baby Bum
OriginEngland (part of the United Kingdom)
Websitelittlebabybum.com
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2011–present
GenreEntertainment
Subscribers41 million[1]
Total views40.11 billion[1]

Last updated: March 23, 2024

History

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Cannis and Derek uploaded their first video, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, to YouTube on 29 August 2011. This was followed up, four months later, with their second upload, Baa Baa Black Sheep, a more complex and slightly longer video.[11][12]

Little Baby Bum's popularity increased after the release of its 2nd compilation of videos which was approximately one hour long. To create a one-hour-long video they combined individual videos into long-form videos. The rationale behind this change was so that "parents wouldn't have to keep pressing the play button after each video had finished."[11]

The OpenSlate company published a list of YouTube’s 10 most profitable channels of 2014, ranking Little Baby Bum in 4th place with 270 million views and $3.46 million in earnings.[13]

In June 2018, LBB announced an upcoming live show tour in 30 cities throughout the UK.[10]

In September 2018, Little Baby Bum was bought by Moonbug Entertainment for an undisclosed sum. By the time of the purchase, LBB had accumulated 16 million subscribers and about 23 billion views across Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube.[10][14]

In April 2020, Moonbug signed a deal with Chinese video platform Xigua Video, to host the show on its platform in China.[15][16]

Rankings

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Since 2014 when the video was posted, Little Baby Bum's 54-minute compilation video of Wheels On The Bus | Plus Lots More Nursery Rhymes | 54 Minutes Compilation[17] has had 2.3 billion views and was YouTube's 39th most viewed video of all time.[18][19] At that time, this video was the most-watched video of all time on YouTube, surpassing Psy's Gangnam Style, and was the first non-music video to reach 1 billion views.[20]

As of April 2016, Wheels On The Bus had attracted over 1.33 billion views. It was officially recognized as the number one educational video by Guinness World Records in 2017.[21]

As of 2018 Little Baby Bum was the world's tenth-largest YouTube channel with 16.5 million subscribers.[22] In 2020 the show attracted over 1.5 billion monthly views and over 80 million subscribers.[9]

Merchandise

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LittleBabyBum signed a licensing deal to launch a set of plush toys of its main characters, extracted from the traditional English nursery rhymes, like Incy Wincy Spider and Baa Baa Black Sheep.[23] This deal was signed with Commonwealth Toy, the same company that makes plush versions of Angry Birds, and also distributes products for Care Bears and SpongeBob.[23] The plush toys went on general release on 18 May 2016.

Little Baby Bum signed a toy master agreement with MGA Entertainment in August 2020 in which MGAE is the worldwide licensing agent for merchandise based on the animated show.[9]

References

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  1. ^ a b "About LittleBabyBum". YouTube.
  2. ^ "Posts | The Baby Spot". TheBabySpot.ca. 2014-01-27. Retrieved 2018-07-19.
  3. ^ "Little Baby Bum App Review | The Baby Spot Parenting Magazine". TheBabySpot.ca. 2014-01-27. Retrieved 2021-06-15.
  4. ^ Shimpach, Shawn, ed. (2020). The Routledge Companion to Global Television. New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-72434-1.
  5. ^ "Little Baby Bum launches on BBC iPlayer creating wider platform for Little Tikes range". Toy World Magazine | The business magazine with a passion for toys. 2021-06-14. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
  6. ^ "Little Tikes expresses excitement over Little Baby Bum's arrival on BBC iPlayer". ToyNews. Retrieved 2021-06-17.
  7. ^ "TBI Weekly: Making a success of YouTube-first content". TBI Vision. 2021-03-26. Retrieved 2021-06-15.
  8. ^ "First kids VOD service launches on Freeview". Digital TV Europe. 2016-07-07. Retrieved 2021-06-15.
  9. ^ a b c "MGA Entertainment named worldwide licensing agent for Little Baby Bum". ToyNews. Retrieved 2021-06-15.
  10. ^ a b c "Publishing is the next chapter for YouTube's Little Baby Bum". Retrieved 2021-04-22.
  11. ^ a b “Little Baby Bum: how UK couple built world's fifth-biggest YouTube channel”, The Guardian, 19 March 2015.
  12. ^ “Wheels on the Bus beats One Direction in Little Baby Bum's YouTube rise”, The Guardian, 17 June 2015.
  13. ^ "YouTube’s 10 most profitable channels of 2014 were, um, not what I expected", VentureBeat, January 2nd, 2015.
  14. ^ "YouTube nursery-rhyme channel with billions of views sold". BBC News. 14 September 2018.
  15. ^ Moonbug. "Moonbug Enters China Through Strategic Partnership with Xigua Video". www.prnewswire.co.uk. Retrieved 2021-04-22.
  16. ^ "Moonbug, Xigua Team for China Content". licenseglobal.com. 2020-04-24. Retrieved 2021-04-22.
  17. ^ "Wheels On The Bus Compilation from LittleBabyBum!". YouTube. Retrieved September 7th, 2015.
  18. ^ "Top 1000 Most Viewed YouTube Videos of All Time". YouTube. Retrieved September 7th, 2015.
  19. ^ MyTop100Videos. “Most Viewed Videos of 2014 (Non-VEVO)". YouTube. Retrieved September 7th, 2015.
  20. ^ "Today Waka Waka became the 20th video to hit 1B views. Here's a list of the fastest videos to achieve this milestone". MyTop100Videos. Twitter. January 26, 2016.
  21. ^ Records, Guinness World (8 September 2016). Guinness World Records 2017 | Little Baby Bum. Guinness Superlatives Limited. ISBN 9781910561348. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  22. ^ "The story behind the sale of the world's 10th largest Youtube channel". Daily EN. Retrieved 2021-06-15.
  23. ^ a b "Bigger than X Factor: YouTube channel Little Baby Bum moves into toys", The Guardian, 10 August 2015
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