Insight

The volume of recent news reports on ITV’s plan to move its children’s TV offering from a linear channel (CITV) onto its VOD platform (ITVX) is indicative of the level of interest in what kids watch nowadays.

There’s a growing acknowledgement that kids’ viewing has changed; parents around the country are now more familiar than ever with VOD menu screens and shortcuts to get to the likes of Peppa Pig, Cocomelon or Bluey as quickly as they can, rather than waiting for these shows to be broadcast.

Back in 2012, Barb reported total viewing for children aged 4-15 at an average of 142 minutes per day. All of this viewing was on TV sets, as that was the only device we reported at the time.

Now we report what people watch across a wide range of devices and platforms, in this What People Watch, we ask what does children’s viewing in the UK look like today?

Chart 1: Viewing in 2022 by children aged 4-15
Source: Barb, TV & Online Network, children 4-15, 2022

Chart 1 shows 151 minutes of total identified viewing per day by children aged 4-15 in 2022, slightly more overall than in 2012, but some way below the 239 minutes watched by all individuals aged 4+ that we reported in January’s What People Watch. However, the character of children’s viewing has changed substantially over the past decade.

Barb has been measuring viewing of SVOD services and video-sharing platforms since 2021. We can see that children watch 38 minutes daily of SVOD services, similar to the 36 minutes watched by all individuals. However, they watch 69 minutes daily of video-sharing platforms like YouTube, TikTok and Twitch, much greater than the 43 minutes for all individuals.

Looking at this another way though, just over half of children’s viewing is still on broadcaster and S/AVOD services, indicating the continued importance of longer-form and professionally produced content in environments with a greater degree of parental approval.

It’s also notable how much of kids’ viewing (60%) is still on TV sets. The draw of the biggest screen, the best for shared viewing experiences, remains substantial. However, there is no ignoring the importance of the other devices, in particular smartphones, for children’s viewing. Smartphones account for 19% of total identified viewing by kids, compared with 10% for all individuals.

As you might expect, there are also marked differences between the younger and older ends of the children’s age range. When we divide the audiences up into smaller groups, as in charts 2 and 3 below, one of the first things we can see is that 12–15-year-olds watch more than younger groups – largely because they are likely to go to bed later, so have more time to watch.

Charts 2 & 3: Daily minutes viewed in 2022 by device and content source
Source: Barb, TV Sets & Online Network, children 4-7, 8-11, 12-15, 2022

Chart 2 looks at which devices children of different ages are viewing on, while chart 3 looks at their viewing by content source. We can see that as children get older, the TV set becomes less dominant while smartphones become more prevalent. This goes hand-in-glove with the increased time spent viewing video-sharing platforms, as these are more likely to be viewed on smaller devices.

It is also interesting that the volume of viewing to broadcaster and SVOD services is broadly similar between the 8-11s and 12-15s – the extra viewing for the oldest group comes from the video-sharing services, indicating the increased importance they play for young teens. Even among 4-7s, just under 30% of their daily viewing comes from the likes of YouTube.

As we measure video-sharing platforms at the service level, we’re not able to dig into the content that is most popular on these platforms. Nevertheless, within the broadcasters and the SVOD services, it is possible to look at the way that different shows and types of content perform for this audience. Let’s have a look at some examples.

Tables 1 and 2 show the most-viewed BVOD and SVOD titles by children in the first quarter of this year. They include the highest performing instance of an title (otherwise the tables would largely feature only pre-school title Bluey!).

Tables 1 and 2: Most viewed BVOD and SVOD titles in Q1 2023 by children aged 4-15Source: Barb, Online Network, top performing single episode, children 4-15 Jan 23-Mar 23. BBC includes BBC iPlayer and Sky TV on demand.

We can see a mixture of children’s films and series in both tables, as well as some titles with wider appeal, such as Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, Clarkson’s Farm and films such as Jurassic World: Dominion. However, we’re going to take a more detailed look at two of the top shows, the top-performing SVOD title, Encanto on Disney+ and Bluey, the number two show in both the BVOD and SVOD tables.

Charts 4 and 5: Encanto

Encanto, released on Disney+ on Christmas Eve 2021, is the number one title for Children 4-15 over Q1 2023, over a year since its release. The high level of viewing stems from the younger end of the children’s 4-15 demographic, with those aged 4-7 accounting for 63% of the viewing.

Source: Barb, Online Network, children 4-7, Dec 21 – Mar 23

Chart 4 shows the volume of viewing by children aged 4-7 to Encanto since it launched. It’s clear that viewing peaked around its launch and at the beginning of 2022 and then dropped off, but the film has remained the number one children’s title on the SVOD platform. Chart 5 illustrates that while reach for the film (the green line) has begun to plateau in terms of the amount of children that want to view it, those that enjoy the film watch it multiple times across the month and have continued to do so.

Charts 6 and 7: Bluey

Pre-school show Bluey has become a global success. The Antipodean hounds are loved by children and parents alike, and celebrities and even prime ministers have been vocal in their love for the show.

Here in the UK, Bluey is available on a linear channel and its BVOD service (CBeebies and BBC iPlayer) and an SVOD service (Disney+). As such, the show enables us to look at the differences in viewing across the platforms.

Source: Barb, TV & Online Network, children 4-15, Jan 23 – Mar 23

In charts 6 and 7, we have split up broadcaster and BVOD viewing to look at the total volume of viewing on these two platforms compared to SVOD. The obvious constraints on linear scheduling mean that cumulative viewing (and daily reach) on a broadcast channel is smaller than the viewing on SVOD and BVOD services, where children can view in large volumes on multiple occasions. Chart 7 shows the average session length is similar across all three platforms, but the frequency (or daily number of sessions) is much higher for on-demand platforms.

It’s clear that children are watching as much content as they ever were, but the explosion in the number of channels and services to watch on means their viewing has fragmented across these platforms and devices. However, the tendency for children to watch their favourite content repeatedly remains, regardless of the platform or device used to watch on. Parents will undoubtedly need to borrow a phrase from Bluey’s dad, Bandit, when they are asked to watch a show for the nth time: “Oh, biscuits!”

Neil Jones, Head of Insight, Barb