Photo Credit: Moonbug
Moonbug Entertainment has raked in over $50 million in revenues in 2020 – proving how lucrative kids’ music can be.
Moonbug Entertainment owns popular YouTube channels like Cocomelon, Little Baby Bum, and Blippi. Financial results filed with the Companies House in the UK offer us a peek inside the company’s success. Revenues for Moonbug have grown 71.1% in 2020 from £39.6m ($53.8m). Most of that revenue came from distribution and self-serve platform revenue – YouTube channels.
Moonbug also made £5.5m from ‘originals and brand productions’ and £4.8m from licensing and merch. The company reported an operating loss of £1.4m for the year. Moonbug says a legal dispute caused the operating loss – otherwise, it would have been profitable. That reference in the filing may be related to a copyright infringement dispute with rival Super Jojo.
YouTube deleted Super Jojo in September 2021 after receiving multiple third-party complaints. The channel had 22 million subscribers at the time of deletion and was in the top 25 animation channels on YouTube. The removal happened around the same time MoonBug Entertainment filed a complaint in California federal court accusing Super Jojo of copying Cocomelon.
The complaint alleges Super Jojo has ripped off hundreds of characters, settings, song titles, lyrics, and images to mimic those of Cocomelon. “Super Jojo shamelessly freerides on Cocomelon’s success by closely copying and exploiting every possible element of the Cocomelon channel,” Moonbug says in its original legal complaint. “Even Cocomelon fans remake with amazement how pervasively Super Jojo rips off Cocomelon, sometimes frame by frame.”
Babybus (Fujian) Network Technology Company, the Chinese company behind Super Jojo, reported revenues of $100 million last year.
The largest part of its income is derived from ‘self-serve platforms’ like YouTube and its online advertising. Moonbug Entertainment has been expanding its reach in the music industry through a partnership with Universal Music Group.
UMG will provide worldwide distribution, publishing, and publishing for the Moonbug Music label. That includes music from all the YouTube channels under the Moonbug umbrella, which generates around 150 million monthly streams.