Child's Play: Kids' TV Viewing At 8-Year High

kids watching tv

The Nielsen Company says children's viewing of TV is at an eight-year high.

Young kids 2-5 spend 32 hours in front of their TVs, while kids 6-11 watch a little less, at over 28 hours. Nielsen says the lower numbers for older kids are the result of more time spent at school.

The biggest use of TV time -- 78% -- comes with live TV viewing, which among kids 2-5 is 24 hours, or 51 minutes per week. This comes after time playing DVDs at 4 hours, 33 minutes; then DVR playback, 1:29; game console, 1:12; and videotape playback at 45 minutes.

But older kids are different than young kids, with DVD and game console use about equal: 2:28 for DVD and 2:23 for game console. DVR playback is less than half the time for these two activities at just 59 minutes. Videotape playback is at 18 minutes per week among this segment.

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Nielsen says this trend mirrors overall media consumption in the two years. TV viewing is higher, and so are Internet, gaming and mobile phone activities.

One of the more surprising pieces of research from Nielsen shows that in DVR households, younger kids are watching far more commercials than older kids -- more than every other TV demographic group.

nielsen chart

In DVR households, Nielsen says kids 2-5 see 50% of commercials in DVR playback during prime time. The data comes from prime-time averages among the four broadcast networks during the May sweep period.

Kids 6-11 see 44% in playback; teens 12-17, 43%; adults 18-34, 44%; adults 35-54, 43%; and adults 55 plus, 44%.

1 comment about "Child's Play: Kids' TV Viewing At 8-Year High ".
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  1. Howie Goldfarb from Blue Star Strategic Marketing, October 27, 2009 at 9:50 a.m.

    You want to solve healthcare? TV and being online are major causes of Obesity in Children and Adults. I can think of nothing positive from kids watching so much TV. And this also reduces the amount of interaction parents have with their kids, which leads to other social and developmental problems. Maybe we need someone to invent giants hamster wheels to put kids in so that they have to run if they watch?

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