Dubit Trends at the UK Children's Media Summit: Challenges and Opportunities

by Adam Woodgate , SVP Media Insights, Dubit

The article below is excerpted from Adam Woodgate's presentation at the The UK Children's Media Foundation Summit, held in London on February 28. If you would like to see the full set of slides, or for more information on Trends and Dubit's other research, contact [email protected].

During a 2015 interview, Jeff Bezos said “I very frequently get the question 'what's going to change in the next 10 years’? And that is a very interesting question.” He noted, however, that he’s seldom asked what’s not going to change, and said, “that second question is actually the more important of the two, because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time.”

When it comes to kids, some things do change, but much more stays the same. For example:

• Regardless of generation, children pass through the same developmental phases, though their surroundings influence the context for growth and learning.
• All children have only 24 hours in their day. Very little discretionary time remains after the hours allotted to formal education, non-school planned activities, meals and sleep.?
• Kids are still kids: they want to be entertained, to play and have fun, to socialise (on- and offline), and to spend time with family and friends. This can be seen in the top 5 activities enjoyed by 2-15 year olds in the UK, which are unchanged since 2019.

At Dubit, we call Generation Alpha the iCan Generation. Born since 2010 (the year the iPad launched), they’ve never known life without touchscreen interactive, mobile, on-demand media. Gen Alphas are curating their own media lives, with tablets as toddlers and owning smartphones from age 8 or 9, in ways that previous generations could only dream about.?

Children and young teens in the UK spend the equivalent of nearly two days per week on TV, tablets, smartphones or PC/Laptops (like adults, much of that time is multi-tasking). Surprisingly, the television set is still their most-used device, with 2-15 year olds spending 90 minutes more per week using a big screen than a smartphone. The TV set offers a high fidelity experience, which is best for social and appointment-driven viewing. Time spent with smartphones increases with age, as does use of PCs/Laptops.?

The line graph above shows the trend in activities for which 2-15 year olds use a television. Prior to the first COVID lockdown, more children and young teens watched broadcast TV (kids and non-kids broadcast, cable or satellite) than watched SVOD. During the lockdowns, broadcast declined to just about 50%, while SVOD grew a bit, eventually settling in the low 70s percent. YouTube - watched on a TV set - has grown steadily to just under 50% (having previously peaked at 50% in Apr ’20).

(NB: the dip in Apr ’21 - around the end of the third COVID lockdown - resulted from kids putting down their screens as restrictions fell on playing with friends in person, visiting attractions, going to see distant relatives, etc.)

Across all four screens, video in all forms (broadcast TV, satellite/cable, SVOD, BVOD, AVOD, FAST, TVOD) dominates, averaging just under 16 hours per week. Playing games is second, followed by out-of-school learning and education (homework/assignments, use of learning apps, study-support and self-learning activities). Internet browsing, music listening, and social media (for older children and teens) all exceed two hours per week, on average.?

The economic foundations of children’s media - media planning and advertising, new series commissions, licensing and distribution deals - all depend on accurate, trusted, verified audience measurement. But, here’s the problem…?

Children and teens are everywhere, crossing and combining platforms as they engage with TV, video, games and social media. With such ubiquitous media, everything competes with everything and everything connects with everything - but measurement hasn’t kept up with kids’ media consumption.

This table shows weekly reach: as many 2-15s watch YouTube as play any game, and as many older youth are on social media as watch children’s broadcast TV. But reach doesn’t tell the whole story, as content choice changes with age. On YouTube:

• Unboxing is the top category for younger children, followed by music videos;
• 6-8s also put unboxing on top, but followed by how-to videos;
• 9-12s and 13+ also favor how-tos and unboxing, but the content has tipped from opening blind bags and toy boxes to ‘big reveal’ fashion tips, make-overs, building and construction.

Creativity and excitement are the key drivers of engagement with the ‘big three’ game platforms. Fortnite and Roblox promote being ‘social,’ while Minecraft is about creativity.

Each social media platform delivers against a specific purpose:

• Snapchat is for chatting;
• YouTube and TikTok satisfy video viewing;
• Pinterest, then Instagram, are the choice for looking at photos, with Instagram best for sharing;
• X is used to keep up-to-date (though this is a less-important driver).

The challenges:

• Justifying investment in an audience that is hard to monetise in the short-term, without cross-platform IP data;
• Balancing the need to be ‘where kids are’ versus audience building on your owned-and-operated distribution platforms
• Changing established habits, especially among an audience that is so used to on-demand media.

The opportunities:

• The lifetime value of a cradle-to-grave customer (ROI, ‘paid’ over the lifetime);
• New, expanded vision of your content offer - building breadth of genres and content styles (animation/live-action);
• Playing to linear’s strengths: timely, curated, varied, using popular titles to support new IP discovery, appointment viewing, facilitating child-parent shared experiences.

For more information on joining the Children's Media Foundation campaign in support of expanding culturally relevant, trusted and life-affirming content for British children and youth, click here.