Here’s a little-known fact about children’s animation company DHX Media — its fastest-growing segment is the one that posts free content on YouTube.

The Halifax- and Toronto-based company released results last week for the quarter ending Dec. 31, and the company said its organic revenue growth (which excludes acquired businesses) was 37 per cent. But what’s interesting is WildBrain, DHX’s wholly owned unit that posts stuff on YouTube, reported organic growth of 73 per cent — about twice the level of the overall company.

That’s surprising when you consider London-based WildBrain makes its money — $34 million in gross revenues for all of 2017 — off a platform most of us associate with home videos. It turns out that YouTube is the leading platform for children watching video, grabbing 15 per cent of their viewing time. That exceeds the 13 per cent of their time that goes to traditional TV and the nine percent that goes to Netflix.

“YouTube is not meant for children,” Samreen Ghani, head of WildBrain’s content production and operations, said in an interview Wednesday in WildBrain’s headquarters near London’s Euston Station. “But YouTube is one of the largest platforms where kids are watching content because it’s free.”

The WildBrain story dates back about four years, when DHX set out to capture the ad revenue from DHX content that people posted on YouTube. The company soon realized there was an opportunity to make money on YouTube and it was a fast-growing business. The operation became WildBrain, which now employs more than 80 people and has several different revenue channels.

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The company develops YouTube content using the catalogue of DHX children’s cartoons. These segments are usually three to five minutes in length. WildBrain gets 55 per cent of the ad revenue from this content, which adds up given the cartoons are often watched a million times or more.

Ghani explained the content can be produced quickly at one-20th the cost of, for example, a cartoon for TV because YouTube cartoons are shorter and of varying quality, which means a segment can become profitable on the YouTube ad revenue it earns. What’s more, there’s extremely fast feedback from WildBrain’s proprietary analytics tools, which helps the company produce related content, often within two months.

WildBrain became so good at producing YouTube content that other media companies, such as NBC Universal and Turner, came to the company asking that it produce their YouTube animation. Toy companies like Mattel have also contracted WildBrain to produce their YouTube content, which can range from animation to videos of kids playing with the toys. Ghani showed me a Fireman Sam segment that comprised a two-minute animation, then went to a paid advertisement for the toys shown in the animation. It helps to build brand awareness for the toys, she said, and the analytics can tell the toymakers which toys resonate with children.

More and more children are watching these segments. WildBrain fans watched 13 million minutes of its content in June 2014. Within three years, that figure had jumped to seven billion minutes — 390 per cent compounded annual growth.

Ghani said there is no sign that children’s and parents’ love of YouTube is abating. The main drive now is to gain more recognition for the WildBrain brand so parents know the company produces quality, appropriate content for children.

“That’s what we’re really pushing for now — to be the top-of-mind brand for parents, in the same way Disney and Nickelodeon are,” Ghani said.