One cannot disagree that kids nowadays are smarter than we were as kids, they are clear about their priorities and sure know how to get what they want. Having being born in the age internet and television, the younger lot sure knows and cares a lot more about what’s happening around the world than we ever did, not denying that fact I myself was also a kid, not too long ago but you get my point.Children are influenced by people they see on television. Obviously, this can have a negative result, but most kids content creators hope that it is always positive.
In recent times kids’ TV shows have started highlighting unique life lessons such as healthy living and environmental awareness. When kids see their favourite toonsmaking positive choices, they are also influenced to do so. One can definitely say that TV viewing for kids and the way they consume it has changed a lot.
BARC’s 2nd edition of the popular and exhaustive What India Watched 2019, gives an insight on how the ‘little audiences’ have consumed TV content over the year in 2019.
Kids (aged 2-14) make up 20% of the TV viewing universe in India, infact kids channels contributed to 6% of total TV viewership in India in 2019.
Kids Viewership Across Markets
The above table highlights that Tamil Nadu/Pondicherry has a higher volume of kids’ genre viewership touching a 13% share of market which totals upto 450 billion minutes of consumption. Maharashtra/Goa’s share is just shy of 12% with close to 400 billion minutes of consumption. States that do not consume a lot of kids’ content include Kerala and Haryana/Himachal/J&K. These states don’t even touch the average market share of 6%.
What Kids enjoyed watching in 2019?
Kids viewing has a footprint well beyond channels and content specifically targeted at them, According to the exhaustive report curated by BARC India, in 2019 it was noticed that kids really indulged in watching content across GECs, Movies, Sports and Music.Percentage of their preference is mentioned in the creative above.
Adults Also Enjoy Watching Kids Content
Good stories consist of great characters, excellent setting, and strong action, and when it comes to animated cartoon movies meant for children, they easily appeal to adults too. At times it is really easy to enjoy what was created for children; adults in the age of 31-40 constitute 18% viewing minutes.
Language Preference
Kids’ preference for languages at an overall level reflect the larger universe, with Hindi being both the dominant as well as the over-indexed language in terms of viewership by kids. Regional languages across the board typically see a marginally lower proportion of viewing among kids, while English sees a marginally higher proportion of viewing.
To conclude we can say that content that kids watch on TV has the potential to be educational for young children. While some provide a good learning platform for young children, others are better suited to entertainment purposes only.
