From the June 2005 Rating Survey of Young Children's TV Viewing
October 2005
The report features the current condition of TV viewing of young children aged two to six based on the result of “Rating Survey of Young Children's TV Viewing” conducted in June 2005.
“Rating Survey of Young Children's TV Viewing” has been conducted almost every year since 1990, when NHK Educational TV, or ETV, started an intensive programming for a time slot for young children. This year, 1,127 young children living within 30-kilimeter area of Tokyo were sampled.
Major finding includes that they watch television 2 hours and 15 minutes per day on weekly average. A gradual decline is observed in young children's viewing hours, with 1998 as the peak with 2 hours and 43 minutes. For comparison, “National Individual Audience Rating Survey” conducted around the same time this year shows elementary-school children watch television 2 hours and 5 minutes per day.
As for time slots, the young children often watch television from evening to night, which overlaps with a broadcasting time slots where programs for young children and animation programs are aired. Popular programs among the young children are cartoons broadcast by commercial stations such as “Sazae-san” and “Doraemon” and ETV programs for young children including “Peek-a-boo!,” “Fun with Japanese,” and “Let's Play with Mother.”
A notable trait of the young children is that they watch video for a relatively long time. The young children's VCR viewing hours on weekly average is 35 minutes per day, with children aged two watching video 57 minutes, almost one hour. The details of the survey result are given in the report.