Research: Young children are key influencers in home-entertainment mix
Young children have a huge impact on the device and entertainment mix in the home, impacting viewing behavior, tablet ownership, Subscription Video on Demand (SVOD) usage and pay TV change behavior. Homes with young children show some of the most drastic shifts towards non-linear viewing and connected devices. Only teenagers and very young adults show greater shifts.
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Homes with young children show some very specific behaviors around tablet usage in particular. Across Europe and the US, the presence of a young child in the home is associated with significantly above average tablet ownership and homes with young kids watch TV on a tablet more often than any other group. Thirty per cent of homes with young kids watch on a tablet weekly or daily compared to 20 per cent in homes without children. Homes with young kids also show above average ownership of nearly every key connected device from smart TVs to games consoles to DVRs.
As kids age, their impact on the in-home entertainment environment diminishes. Homes with older children (over ten but under 18) trend back to average for almost every measure and even show lower than average uptake of SVOD services and connected devices. Kids’ TV executives refer to this period as the ‘lost years’, with older children being notoriously difficult to target. This is, in part, because they are moving away from the plethora of content aimed at younger children but have yet to migrate heavily into the targetable social media app environment favored by teenagers.
App usage overall follows a similar development arc to TV viewing from young to tween to teen. Homes with young kids favor off-the shelf video services like Netflix, Amazon, iTunes and YouTube. By contrast, homes with older kids shift away from all but iTunes and Google Play. Once the teenage years are reached, social media apps like Snapchat, Vine, Instagram and Periscope ascend in importance for video.
Homes with both young and older kids show very high pay TV uptake, but it is in the homes with younger children where change behavior is highest. In all bit a few countries, homes with young kids are less likely to desert pay TV altogether, despite changing provider more often. The preferred channel mix also varies significantly with young kids, not surprisingly, skewing towards Disney, Turner and Viacom and older kids favoring Fox. The national TV networks fare poorly in homes with young kids but far better than average in homes with older kids.
YouTube is particularly important to young children and YouTube channels have responded in recent years with an increase in both duration and frequency of their productions. Analysis of the top 50 YouTube channels for young kids shows that, on average, the number of pieces of content produced per channel each month is more than 20, up over 25 per cent since last year and four times the rate of just two years ago. The average length of content is now eight and a half minutes. YouTube content aimed at young children is clearly getting more ‘TV like’.
The above is written by Guy Bisson of Ampere Analysis. Click here for more from Ampere on the kids TV market.