The nominees for the fourth annual Children’s & Family Emmy Awards were announced recently, and Disney leads the pack with a staggering 103 nominations.
27 shows, shorts, specials, and series are represented, and come from across most of the Disney brands. Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: Skeleton Crew alone accounts for 17 of the nominations, while Disney’s Descendants: The Rise of Red, Goosebumps: The Vanishing, received 11. Programming from Pixar, National Geographic, and Marvel are also up for awards recognition.
A screenshot from the trailer to Disney’s Descendants: The Rise of Red – YouTube, Disney+
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But families that only use Disney+ for Bluey may be surprised to learn the streamer has more than two dozen shows targeted at them.
Selection Process
Emmy Awards are determined by television industry professionals, and the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards is separate from the main ceremony. A program’s popularity or status (i.e.: canceled or renewed) has no bearing on its eligibility.
Neel on Star Wars Skeleton Crew – YouTube, Star Wars
At the announcement of the nominees, Deadline reported Rachel Schwartz, Head of the Children’s & Family Emmy Awards, said, “We’re excited to honor the extraordinary individuals and teams who bring children’s and family television to life every day.” She continued, “As the landscape continues to grow—and as studies highlight the positive impact educational programming has on young children—we look forward to coming together to celebrate this meaningful and inspiring work.”
A screenshot from the trailer to Disney’s Descendants: The Rise of Red – YouTube, Disney+
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Ultimately, the metric seems to be programs that voters believe are impactful, meaningful, and inspiring. While Disney’s many nominations are impressive, and its programs could be technically excellent, is anyone other than Emmy voters paying attention?
Skeleton Audience
Among its 17 nominations, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew was nominated for Outstanding Young Teen Series. While it may be popular with industry professionals, the show was a failure. No episode of Skeleton Crew made the Nielsen streaming charts, despite good word of mouth. That may have more to do with Star Wars apathy than indication of the show’s quality. It currently has a 62% Rad rating on Criticless with 32 voters.
Congratulations to the cast and crew of Skeleton Crew on their 17 Children’s and Family Emmy® nominations including Outstanding Young Teen Series. pic.twitter.com/u6pDUfmaup
— Star Wars (@starwars) November 19, 2025
An Emmy win could give Skeleton Crew a slight bump. But it will be too little, too late. High budgets and low viewership numbers all but guarantee the show won’t return. Anything attached to Star Wars was formerly a surefire hit, particularly with young men. That seems to be an audience Disney has lost.
Ironically, Descendants: The Rise of Red, a property targeted at girls, did very well.
The Rise and Fall of Descendants
In its first three days on Disney+, The Rise of Red (nominated for Outstanding Fiction Special) became its most-watched live-action original movie in two years. By its 12th week of streaming it had reached 33 million views. However, that was in the summer of 2024, a virtual lifetime ago in terms of pop culture. Since then, KPop Demon Hunters has become a cultural phenomenon.
Top 15 trending Halloween costumes for 2025, according to Google
15 – Glinda
14 – Toothless
13 – Nurse (Silent Hill)
12 – Nightwing
11 – Hamilton
10 – Lorax
9 – Elphaba
8 – Derpy (KPOP Demon Hunters)
7 – Labubu
6 – Chicken Jockey (Minecraft)
5 – Baby Saja (KPOP Demon Hunters)
4… pic.twitter.com/xk4i4S3VvZ— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) October 16, 2025
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Descendants didn’t make the list of trending Halloween costumes this year. While it had a quick flash of popularity, it doesn’t seem to have much lasting cultural resonance outside of its established fanbase.
Emmy nominations are good. Viewership is preferable.
Conclusion
Disney may dominate awards recognition, but the audience data suggests most viewers are only engaging with a fraction of its offerings. Other Emmy-nominated programs, like Win or Lose, have moved in and out of the zeitgeist. But many of the nominees are for preschoolers, and it’s well known that Bluey — which Disney licenses — reigns supreme.
Bluey, Bingo, and Bandit from Bluey – Disney Plus
Since Disney has decided to stop providing subscriber numbers for its services, it’s impossible to know how many people have access to these programs. Is anyone watching RoboGogo, Disney Jr.’s Ariel, or Big City Greens? That too is difficult to know without digging into the Nielsen data. But the fact that it requires digging may be telling enough.
What do you think? Is anyone watching these Disney programs aside from Emmy voters? Let us know in the comments!
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