PBS KIDS Video

Review by eFreeware

PBS KIDS Video is a free streaming app from PBS KIDS, the public broadcaster's children's arm, and it puts the network's educational shows, songs and movies in one place on an Android device. The catalog is large and the framing is narrow: this is video for young children, not general entertainment. The main reason to consider it is that the library is built around programs like Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Wild Kratts and Sesame Street, and the app asks nothing of you to start watching.

The app has more than 10 million installs and a 4.3 average across 68,071 ratings, and it has been updated since its release in June 2014. That combination of age and steady updates tells you this is a long-running service rather than a short-lived experiment.

What I find most interesting is the balance the app strikes between breadth and simplicity. It offers full episodes, clips, sing-alongs and a live channel, and it does so without a paywall in front of the content. For a parent looking for a dependable way to hand a child a screen without wandering into the wider video ecosystem, that combination is the pitch.

Built for young children and the adults managing the screen

The developer describes the app as aimed at children ages 2 to 8, which is a wide but coherent range. Toddlers get songs and short clips; early grade schoolers get full episodes and series with more narrative. If your household includes children in that band, the catalog is likely to have something for each of them without you having to curate playlists by hand.

It also suits parents who want the video itself to be the point, rather than a portal to everything else. The app is rated Everyone, and the content is drawn from PBS KIDS series rather than open uploads. That matters if you have ever handed a phone to a child and then spent the next ten minutes checking what they landed on.

The other audience is families who travel or commute with children. Downloads are part of the feature set, so episodes, songs and select movies can be kept on the device for later. That is a meaningful convenience for car trips, flights and waiting rooms.

Because the videos are only available inside the United States, this is a US-focused app by design. Families outside the country will not be able to view the videos.

A deep catalog of episodes, clips and songs

The headline number is more than 700 full episodes drawn from over 50 PBS KIDS series, and the roster includes Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Wild Kratts, Sesame Street, Odd Squad, Arthur, Curious George, Alma's Way, Lyla in the Loop, Carl the Collector, Work It Out Wombats! and more. New episodes and songs are added regularly, so the library is not static.

Alongside full episodes, the app carries songs and sing-alongs, which are a different kind of watch: shorter, repeatable and easy to use as background during play or a car ride. There are also clips and select movies in the mix, which gives the app more range than a pure episode archive.

The live channel is the feature I would single out. The app streams your local PBS KIDS channel, and the developer says this works without a subscription or a login. For anyone who remembers the broadcast schedule fondly, that is a nice bridge between the old way of watching and the on-demand one.

One structural point worth noting: the download catalog is narrower than the streaming catalog. Downloading is available for a specific list of shows, including Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, Alma's Way, Sesame Street, Wild Kratts, Odd Squad, Dinosaur Train, Let's Go Luna, Nature Cat, Peg + Cat, Xavier Riddle & the Secret Museum and others, with more promised later. If a particular series is the reason you are installing, it is worth checking that list before you rely on offline viewing.

Language options that go further than most children's apps

The app supports English and Spanish audio for its educational episodes and shows, and it offers captioning in both languages. That is useful for bilingual households, for children learning either language, and for parents who want captions on as a matter of course.

It goes a step further with descriptive audio, including a Spanish descriptive audio option, which narrates on-screen action for viewers who need it. American Sign Language is available for fifteen PBS KIDS shows. Taken together, these options make the app more accessible than I would expect from a free children's video service.

In practical terms, the language settings turn the same episode into a different experience. A child who is comfortable in Spanish at home can watch the same Daniel Tiger story in either language, and a parent can switch captions on without hunting through a separate app.

What it costs, and how the app is funded

PBS KIDS Video is free to download and use. The app carries no ads and no in-app purchases, so there is no paid tier to weigh against a free one and nothing to buy inside the app.

The funding model is worth understanding anyway. Corporate sponsors fund PBS KIDS' mission, and short sponsor messages run before some full-length episodes. That is not the same as advertising: it is a brief acknowledgment before certain episodes, not ads woven through the viewing.

For a parent comparing this with subscription video services, the practical difference is that the content is available without a recurring charge. The trade-off is the sponsor message at the front of some episodes and the geographic limit on where the videos can be watched.

How it compares with the alternatives

The obvious comparison is a general-purpose streaming service. Those carry children's sections, but they also carry everything else, and they generally require a subscription. PBS KIDS Video is narrower by design and free, which makes it a different proposition: less choice, but less to manage as a parent.

A dedicated children's subscription service is the closer alternative. Those tend to offer larger original catalogs and more parental controls, at a monthly cost. What this app offers instead is a specific set of public-broadcast series, the live channel, and no subscription requirement, which some families will prefer precisely because it is bounded.

Free video platforms are the other option, and the difference there is curation. This app's library is drawn from PBS KIDS shows rather than open uploads, so the range of what a child can stumble into is much smaller. For parents who have found the open platforms hard to supervise, that constraint is the feature.

If your children are attached to characters from other studios, this app will not have them. It is a PBS KIDS catalog, and it stays inside that world.

A dependable pick for PBS KIDS households

I would recommend PBS KIDS Video to families in the United States with children in the toddler-to-early-grade range who want a free, child-focused video library they can also take offline. The combination of over 700 episodes, a live channel, downloads, Spanish audio and accessibility options is a lot for an app that costs nothing.

The caveats are real but specific. Viewing is limited to the United States, downloads cover a named subset of shows rather than the whole catalog, and sponsor messages open select full-length episodes. None of those undermine the core offer, but they shape how you would use it.

For anyone already invested in PBS KIDS series, this is the most direct way to watch them on a phone or tablet. For everyone else, it is a well-established, well-rated app with a clear purpose and a low barrier to trying it.

What's new in version 7.1.21

Spooky season is back! PBS KIDS is excited to celebrate Halloween with an updated app icon and frighteningly fun videos from your favorite PBS KIDS shows.