Viacom Strikes Deal With Amazon to Stream Children’s Shows

If parents of preschoolers want to plop their children in front of the laptop or tablet to watch “Blue’s Clues” and “Dora the Explorer,” they may have to join Amazon’s subscription streaming service.

Viacom and Amazon announced an extensive, multiyear deal that includes granting Amazon exclusive rights to Nickelodeon’s preschool shows. The agreement — which one analyst estimated to be worth several hundred million dollars — signals that the heated battle for online streaming rights has increasingly moved to television’s youngest viewers.