How Young Children Are Watching TV, Recorded Program & DVDs, and Internet Videos

From the June 2019 Rating Survey on Young Children's TV Viewing

Published: December 1, 2019

This paper reports the current status of young children’s viewing of TV in real time and of recorded programs, DVDs and internet videos based on the “Rating Survey on Young Children’s TV Viewing” held in June 2019. The survey was conducted over a week from June 3 (Monday) to June 9 (Sunday) targeting 1,000 young children aged two through six living within 30km radius of Tokyo.

TV viewing time per day (real-time viewing) for young children was 1 hour and 3 minutes, viewing time of recorded programs/DVDs (time-shifted viewing) was 25 minutes, and that of internet videos was 16 minutes. Looking at weekday ratings and replay rates by 30 minutes, it is revealed young children engaged in both watching real-time viewing and replaying recorded programs/DVDs and online videos between seven and nine in the afternoon, which shows their viewing style is diversifying on weekday evenings as they combine real-time, time-shifted, and online video viewing.

Many ETV’s programs were among the most-watched content, represented by “With Mother.” Some programs including “Anpanman” that were not rated high for the real-time viewing were popular as recorded programs or DVDs, and various titles and genres were watched by young children on the internet via YouTube and other sites.

In terms of parents’ attitudes, the survey suggests they tend to feel more negative about online videos than TV programs.

We compared weekday viewing habits of nursery school children and kindergarten children, which shows differences in peak times of TV viewing and in most-watched programs influenced by the difference in time use in their daily lives (waking up, out of house, coming home, and going to bed).

Questions on the use of apps were newly introduced in this survey, which reveals 40% of young children used apps, mainly for replaying online videos and playing games.

The NHK Monthly Report on Broadcast Research

Yoshinori Yamamoto

in Japanese