• by Wayne Friedman , March 19, 2020

Reversing some systemic ratings declines, national TV kids' networks have seen gains over the last week, as more children are now home from school due to COVID-19 concerns, according to two different TV research companies.

Nickelodeon is up 7% to 560,000 total day Nielsen-measured viewers for the week ending March 15, while NickToons is up 16% to 110,000 viewers, Boomerang is 5% higher to 89,000 and TeenNick is up 22% to 77,000.

WarnerMedia’s The Cartoon Network -- the second-biggest kids' network -- is down slightly by 2% to 291,000, while Nick Jr. is down 2.4% to 240,000. Disney XD is flat at 69,000, while Universal Kids is up 17% to 34,000 and BabyKids is up 6% to 33,000.

Traditional linear TV networks have seen declines in viewing for years due to growing digital platforms, including YouTube.

Samba TV -- which culls viewing data from smart TV automated content recognition technology -- says that over the same two-week period, TeenNick has seen total time spent on its network by 171%, while DisneyXD is 68% higher, Nicktoons is 66% higher, Nick Jr. has added 32%, and Disney Channel has grown 27%.

Samba TV has a measurement panel of millions of U.S. homes and measures the time spent watching TV across more than 190 networks from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm local time.