Abstract
This article presents one of the first studies focused on the time shifted consumption of children’s television shows in Spain. The research analyzes the quantification of the audience’s power in these programs, their particular consumption cycle concerning other genres until 7 days later, the most watched subgenres and the time when traditional content was broadcasted before his time shifted consumption. In order to respond to the objectives, the data of 10 most watched shows were collected for 9 months to reach a sample of 2,750. The results show that children’s programs achieve a notable increase in their traditional audience after adding the time shifted audience, because it is mostly products that do not expire with the passage of time and whose viewers do not seem to care about the date of broadcast. In this way, we observe that children’s shows are the content with a more distributed consumption throughout the sample and that the most watched time shifted contents are those broadcast firstly in the schedules of child protection for traditional television.
Key Words: Time shifted audience; Television shows; Minors; Video On Demand; Children’s channels; Audiovisual consumption
Resumen
Este artículo presenta uno de los primeros estudios centrados en el consumo en diferido de los programas de televisión infantiles en España. La investigación analiza la cuantificación del peso de la audiencia en diferido en estos programas, su ciclo de consumo particular con respecto a otros géneros hasta 7 días después, los subgéneros más vistos y la hora a la que se emitieron por la vía tradicional los contenidos más demandados luego en diferido. Para responder a los objetivos planteados se recopilaron los datos de los 10 programas más vistos en diferido durante 9 meses para alcanzar una muestra de 2.750 contenidos. Los resultados muestran que los programas infantiles destacan por el incremento de su audiencia tradicional tras la suma del diferido al tratarse mayoritariamente de productos que no caducan con el paso del tiempo y a cuyos telespectadores parece no importarles la fecha de emisión. De esta manera, observamos que los programas infantiles son los contenidos con un consumo más repartido a lo largo de los días y que los más vistos en diferido son los emitidos en lineal en los horarios de protección infantil en la televisión tradicional.
Palabras clave: Audiencia en diferido; Programas de televisión; Menores de edad; Vídeo bajo demanda; Cadenas infantiles; Consumo audiovisual
Resumo
Este artigo apresenta um dos primeiros estudos focados no consumo diferido de programas de televisão infantis na Espanha. A pesquisa analisa quantificar o peso da audiência adiada nestes programas, seu ciclo particular de consumo em relação a outros gêneros até 7 dias, subgêneros mais vistos eo tempo que foram emitidos no conteúdo forma tradicional mais os réus então adiaram. Para responder aos objetivos propostos, os dados dos 10 programas mais vistos foram coletados em diferido por 9 meses para atingir uma amostra de 2.750 conteúdos. Os resultados mostram que programas infantis com destaque para o aumento de sua tradicional audiência após a montante diferido ser principalmente de produtos que não expiram com o passar do tempo e cujos espectadores parece não importa a data de emissão. Assim, nota-se que programas infantis estão contentes com mais consumo distribuídos por dias e atrasou o mais visto são os emitidos na proteção horários criança linear na televisão tradicional.
Palavras chave: Público diferido; Programas de televisão; Menores; Vídeo sob demanda; Cadeias infantis; Consumo audiovisual
1. Introduction
Children’s programs have almost disappeared from mainstream networks. In the 1990s, with the advent of private television channels in Spain, the TV programs marketed to children were very competitive, but their presence gradually decreased during the 21st century (Fernández, 2012). According to Digón (2008), the reason for this change was the imposition of the commercial television model, which figured out that a large percentage of the child audience would start watching adult programming if children’s programs were removed from the schedule. Already in 2003, the research project titled “Television and children: Children’s programmes and television anomia” revealed that the broadcasting of children’s programs had plummeted and had been relegated to the early morning timeslot (Cebrián, 2003). The quality of children’s programs also declined as in-house productions were limited to hours-long “container” programs that incorporate foreign television series (Pérez and Núñez, 2009). Vázquez (2009) argues that the low quality of children’s TV content is also caused by the fact that networks broadcast very old productions (36.45% of the children’s programs have been on air for more than ten years and 3.45% for over twenty years). Another constant is variability, as networks often cancelled children’s programs without any warning (Digón, 2008). In addition, the small diversity of children’s time slots in mainstream channels has made children to migrate to children-themed channels (Pérez and Núñez, 2009). “The traditional idea of having time slots in the morning, and in the afternoon, is a programming strategy that no longer responds to changes in children’s viewing habits” (Fuenzalida, 2007: 50).
With the advent of Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) new channels focused on children’s programming emerged. Clan TV (RTVE), Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and Nick Jr (Viacom Inc.) and Boing (Mediaset) were launched to respond to the high demand for children’s content at that time (Fernández, 2012; Fernández and Díaz-Ocampo, 2014). In its early stages, however, DTT did not provide the diversity of content it promised and instead delivered the content that big corporations already had on stock (Fernández, 2012).
Later, the arrival of the second screens (tablets, mobile devices, etc.), boosted television consumption, instead of lowering it. However, unlike in other countries such as France and Italy, where children choose mainstream channels, in Spain, the children’s channels that emerged with DTT became the preferred choice (Díaz-Campo and Fernández 2014). According to the Kids TV Report produced by Eurodata TV Worldwide (2017), European children spent a third of their TV-viewing time on children’s channels, and this percentage reaches 50% among preschool ages. The development of their brands on easily accessible platforms has contributed to the success of channels specialized in children’s programming. For example, in 2017, Clan TV became the most-watched channel among audiences aged 4 to 12 years (reaching a 15% share in that age group), followed by Boing and Disney Channel, with 11.7% and 9.8%, respectively (Barlovento Comunicación, 2018).
1.1. Children’s television channels in Spain
Clan TV is a children’s channel owned by the public television corporation RTVE. 50% of its programming is designed for children 3 to 6 years old, while the other 50% targets children over 7 years of age. It broadcasts 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Its schedule includes more than 30 different productions, of which 63.33% are animated series and 20% are live-action series (Melgarejo and Rodríguez, 2011).
Disney’s children’s channels focus on entertainment, but also include educational content, especially those channels that are aimed at the smallest audience (Disney Junior, for children under 6). Of the content of Disney Channel, 71.11% is designed for children over 7 years of age and 28.88% for viewers 4 to 6 years old. In terms of the genre of its 45 productions, 44.44% are fiction (45), 15.55% are educational, and 4.44% are musicals. Regarding the most-commonly used formats in this channel, animated series and live-action series stand out with 48.88% and 37.77%, respectively (Melgarejo and Rodríguez, 2011). For its part, Boing is Mediaset’s channel for children and teens. It is produced by Turner Broadcasting System, which provides most of its content. 57.1% of its animated series are American, 21.4% Japanese, 14.2% French and 7.14% Canadian (Alonso, 2014).
Nickelodeon targets children over 6 years of age. In fact, 91.30% of its content is designed for children aged 7 to 12 years. That is why Viacom created another channel, Nick Jr., exclusively for preschoolers, aged 3 to 6. The programming offer of Nick Jr. is very scarce: 7 cartoon series, of which 5 are educational (Melgarejo and Rodríguez, 2011). It is important to point out that the preferences of children aged 9 to 10 years are more balanced between animated series, family shows and comedies, although girls tend to stop liking animated series sooner than boys (Garitaonandia, Juaristi and Oleaga, 1999).
The expansion of time shifted television has given children more flexibility to enjoy their favorite contents whenever they want. Therefore, this article aims to analyze the consumption of children’s TV content after it has been broadcast on traditional television channels.
1.2. Studies on the time shifted consumption of children’s programs
The development of new technologies has allowed users to consume television programs right after they have been broadcast on traditional systems. Connected TVs sets are the most widely used devices for the time-shifted viewing of children’s content (34%), followed by tablets, with 27%, and set-top boxes, with 21% (IAB, 2015). The so-called time-shifted viewers refers to the audience created from the first minute in which a program is broadcast on television. It started to be measured in Spain by Kantar Media in February 2015 (Optimedia, 2015). Waisman, Hidalgo and Rossi (2017:186) point out that “mobile devices have very attractive features: their portability, the comfort the provide to parents who want to entertain children while they are busy, access to countless sources of entertainment and information, and their relative low costs”. The multiplication of screens and the possibility of technological entertainment (and not only based on time shifted TV consumption) has made children increasingly sedentary and has deterred them from practicing physical activities such as walking and running, which slows down their development (Quirantes, 2019).
Regarding research on the time-shifted audience, Gallardo and Sierra (2017) conclude that in Spain themed TV channels have experience (in comparison to mainstream channels) the largest percentage growth in time-shifted consumption with respect to their linear broadcast and that the genres with the highest time-shifted consumption are fiction (45%), followed by children’s programs (20%). However, this study of the 10 most time-shifted TV programs was limited to one-month period of analysis. The following year Gallardo-Camacho and Lavín (2018) highlighted the relevance of children’s content in time-shifted viewing based on their high presence (26%) in a sample of the 10 most time-shifted TV programs in a wider period of analysis.
Another study carried out in the United Kingdom revealed that the number of children aged 3 to 11 years who do not watch television on a traditional TV has increased and that the time that children spend time-shifting TV content increased to 119 minutes per week in 2016 (Ofcom, 2017). For its part, Statista (2018) broke down the time-shifted share of TV viewing in the UK and found out that drama and soaps stood out with 37%, followed by documentaries (26%), entertainment and films (22%), music (18%), children’s (15% %), sport (14%) and news (5%).
The TV is the preferred screen in general for viewers over 6 years of age (91%), followed by the computer (55%). However, tablets are the big reveal: in one year, their use increased among children 6 to 14 years old by 10 points, reaching 67% (Médiamétrie, 2018). Focusing on Spain, data from 2017 indicate that on average children 4 to 12 years old spend 145.5 minutes a day watching television and that of that time 3.9 minutes correspond to time-shifted viewing, which is an increase of 0.9 minutes in comparison to the previous year (Barlovento Comunicación, 2018). This growth in time-shifted viewing is generating a loss of traditional television viewers (Santago and González, 2015). In fact, a study of time-shifted audiences in 62 countries has detected a mass migration of the audience to new on-demand television services, except in the case of live telecasts on traditional television (Becker, Abreu, Nogueira and Cardoso, 2018).
With regards to more general studies on time-shifted TV, González Neira and Quintas Froufe (2016) analyzed the consumption of Spanish fiction series and highlighted the lack of correlation with their success in linear broadcast viewership, same as Gallardo-Camacho, Lavín and Fernández-García (2016). Therefore, a children’s program could be successful in time-shifted viewing even if it goes unnoticed in its linear broadcast.
In addition, in the new media context, the consumption of children’s programs also occurs on other digital channels: free online video platforms (YouTube and YouTube Kids) and paid platforms such as Netflix (in its family profile). Netflix produces part of its own content but also depends on the content produced by other companies (Allen, Feils and Disbrow, 2014). In fact, the interest in the children’s market is such that Disney has removed its entire catalog from Netflix to create its own platform called Disney +, which is available for a lower price.
With regards to this case, Lotz (2018) points out that there is a market for new paid video platforms and concludes that they will coexist with the first ones because they target different audiences. Disney, for example, is more aimed at children than Netflix. Lotz also strongly argues that the end is near for traditional themed TV channel packages that American households subscribed to. The advent of over the top (OTT) devices has encouraged young viewers to binge watch their favorite shows, i.e., to watch many episodes of television series in rapid succession (Matrix, 2014). In addition, with the expansion of the internet and mobile applications, children began to be empowered by the possibility of creating interactive audiovisual content easily (Monroy-Hernández and Resnick, 2008), which marked the emergence of child influencers. Tur-Viñes, Núñez and González-Río (2018: 1211) have called for more regulation of the presence of advertisers in the videos uploaded by children, which are characterized by a quasi-professional management style and the omnipresence of brands. However, this article will focus on children’s consumption of what has been previously broadcast on linear television. It is important to know the context in which children consume TV programs now, given that, as Lewin (2010) has already warned, if children “are awake, there’re probably online”. Children’s native connection to the internet justifies the relevance of this research on the behavior of young TV viewers.
This article is the culmination of a wider research project focused on one of the first analyses of time-shifted TV viewing in Spain. As it will be described in the methods section, this part of the project focuses on Spanish children’s time-shifted viewing of traditional television content, which constitutes an unprecedented research in Spain.
1.3. Research objectives
Four research objectives have been established to carry out one of the first in-depth analyses of the time-shifted viewing of children’s TV content:
- O1. Measure the audience of the most time-shifted children’s programs in comparison to other genres.
- O2. Compare the time shifted viewing cycle of children’s programs in comparison to other genres.
- O3. Analyze the most time-shifted subgenres of children’s programs.
- O4. Identify the linear-broadcast time slots of the most time-shifted children’s programs.
The achievement of these objectives will allow us to delve into the analysis of the time-shifted audience of children’s programs.
2. Methods
To achieve the previous objectives, we have used a quantitative method based on the collection and analysis of the audience data of the 10 most time-shifted television programs, each day over nine months (from 25 March 2016 to 25 December 2016). The data were obtained daily with the use of the computer program Infosys + (2016) of Kantar Media, which measures traditional and time-shifted viewership in Spain. Given the difficulties to accurately study television audiences, we decided to analyze the quantitative data provided by the company that provides the information accepted by the audiovisual market in Spain. We consider that the period of study is long enough to yield conclusive results. We worked with a sample of 2,750 programs, obtained over a 275-day period (instead of 276, because due to system failures the data for 11 December 2016 were not available). Since this research is focused on children’s programs, it is important to note that the audience in Spain is measured from the age of 4. As Melgarejo and Rodríguez (2012) have pointed out, the concept of children’s program includes the following subgenres: animated series/cartoons, fiction series, feature films (movies), magazine shows, game shows and talk shows designed for children under the age of 14. The following data were extracted from each of the ten most time-shifted shows each day: name of the program, broadcast date and time, ranking, number of linear viewers, number of time-shifted viewers throughout their consumption cycle, genre and subgenre. To carry out this research we have resorted to the classification of television genres because it is the only way to organize audiovisual texts according to a series of distinctive features and textual and intertextual properties (Wolf, 1984). Wolf remarks that these genres are not always rigid and for this reason we have created our own classification, based on the models developed by other authors (Barroso, 1996; Bustamante, 2008): information genres (newscasts, current affair magazines, documentaries, sport magazines, telecasts of sporting and non-sporting events), fiction genres (Spanish series, foreign series, films, children’s programs) and entertainment genres (reality shows, docu-realities, talent shows, comedy, game shows and entertainment magazines).
In view of the selected method, it is relevant to note that the time-shifted audience data is published one week after the linear broadcast and that it takes into account the reproduction of contents from the first minute after its start time up to seven days later. The time-shifted audiences analyzed in our sample have been distributed in their linear broadcast from 18 March 2016 to 18 December 2016. Kantar Media measures the non-linear Viewing On The Same Day As Live (VOSDAL) and on the following seven days. The system used to measure non-linear viewing is called audio-matching, which is an audiometer that recognizes the audio of the broadcasts and identifies the content through the audio recorded in a database (regardless of the method used by the viewer to view the content: a computer connected to the TV, a digital recorder, etc.). Therefore, Kantar Media’s system does not take into account what people watch in devices other than the TV, i.e. it does not measure placeshifting (Gillan, 2010), which is a new term that refers to the ability of the audience to transfer the consumption of television programs to their mobile devices. In this sense, there are limitations linked to the audience measurement system on which this research is based. For this reason, authors like Hernández-Pérez and Rodríguez (2016) highlight the need for new audience metrics that are more centered on users than on media. However, we believe that these data are legitimized by large media groups and that the conclusions drawn from them are decisive in achieving the previous objectives.
The data extraction system and the sample of this research have been used in other research studies (Gallardo-Camacho and Lavín, 2018, 2019; Gallardo-Camacho, Sierra and Lavín, 2019), none of which were focused on children’s programs. This article aims to unify the findings based on the same sample, but focusing, for the first time, on the role of children in time-shifted viewing. For the creation of figures and tables we used the raw data of these previous research studies, which were accessible to the authors of this article. This article also presents new results on, for example, the distribution of time-shifted viewing across children’s subgenres and according to a classification by broadcast time to meet the objectives set above.
3. Results
Having described the methodological design of the study, this section will present the research results in relation to the objectives set out at the beginning.
3.1. The time-shifted audience share of children’s programs
To achieve the first objective, we have to take into account the fact that the final sample was made of 2,750 units, obtained after collecting the 10 most time-shifted programs every day for a 9-month period in Spain. It is therefore relevant to know how many of these programs are marketed to children (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Frequency of appearance of the most time-shifted children’s programs compared to other genres (N= 2750). Source: Authors’ own creation with data from Gallardo-Camacho and Lavín (2019).
As Figure 1 shows, children’s programs are the fourth most time-shifted, with a frequency of 202 programs, just below foreign series (794), Spanish series (728) and films (529). Therefore, this fourth position is relevant if we consider the large number of genres and subgenres included in the sample. If we put together all the subgenres in a wider category, we can observe the actual weight of children’s programs with respect to the whole sample (Figure 2).
Figure 2: Presence of children’s programs in the sample, in comparison to other genres. Source: Authors’ own creation with data from Gallardo-Camacho and Lavín (2019).
Fiction dominates in time-shifted TV consumption, representing 75% of the entire sample, followed by entertainment (13%), children’s content (7% with the 202 programs shown in Figure 1) and current affairs, with 5% (1% news + 4% live telecasts). However, to determine the weight of the time-shifted viewing of children’s content, it is necessary to observe how much their viewership grows after their linear broadcast (Figure 3).
Figure 3 shows that children’s content stands out from most genres, as its linear audience almost doubles (+92%), after adding the viewers accumulated over an eight-day period (the day of broadcast plus the following seven days). The only two genres with greater increases accumulated in time-shifted viewers are foreign series (+230%) and films (+141%).
Figure 3: Increase in linear audience after adding accumulated time-shifted viewing, by genres. Source: Authors’ own creation with data from Gallardo-Camacho and Lavín (2019).
3.2. The time-shifted viewing cycle of children’s programs
Regarding the second objective, we will analyze the time-shifted viewing cycle of children’s programs in comparison to other genres. Figure 3 showed the increase in linear audience after adding the accumulated time-shifted viewing data, but now it is relevant to determine when this increase occurs over the eight-day period (Figure 4).
Figure 4: Time-shifted consumption cycle of children’s programs in comparison to other genres. Source: Authors’ own creation with data from Gallardo-Camacho, Sierra and Lavín (2019).
As Figure 4 shows, the time-shifted consumption of children’s programs exhibits an atypical behavior with respect to other genders. On the one hand, current affairs programs massively accumulate their time-shifted viewing on the same day as live (VOSDAL), but on the second day there is a large decrease in viewership. In the case of entertainment programs, their time-shifted viewers are more distributed across the first four days (32.6% VOSDAL, 33.3% +1, 13.5% +2 and 7.4% +3). Regarding fiction, we have already seen that it is dominant in time shifted consumption (Figure 1 and 2), but its viewership decreases as the days pass, occurring an accumulation of 66.2% of the time-shifted viewership on the first three days (VOSDAL, +1 and +2). Interestingly, the time shifted consumption of children’s content, our object of study, is unaffected by the passage of time and has a stable cycle of consumption throughout all the days of analysis. VOSDAL accounts for 12.5% of its time-shifted viewership while the last day (+7) accounts for 13.9%. The highest share is 14.4% (+1) while the lowest is 11% (+3). That is, the consumption cycle of children’s programs is evenly and steadily distributed during the days measured by Kantar Media.
3.3. Most time-shifted children’s TV subgenres
As for the classification of the children’s subgenres with the highest time-shifted audience (third objective), we have taken into account the classification developed by Melgarejo and Rodríguez (2012), as mentioned in the methods section.
|
Channels |
Animated series |
Live-action Series |
Movies |
Variety shows |
|
Clan |
132 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Disney Channel |
7 |
17 |
5 |
1 |
|
Disney Junior |
13 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Boing |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Nickelodeon |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Nickelodeon Jr |
22 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
Antena 3 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
|
Total |
178 |
17 |
6 |
1 |
Table 1: Most time-shifted children’s TV subgenres. Source: Authors’ own creation.
Table 1 presents the list of children’s programs featured in 6 themed television channels: Clan TV, Disney Channel, Disney Junior, Boing, Nickelodeon and Nickelodeon Jr; and one mainstream channel (Antena 3). As we can see, animated series are the children’s genre with the highest time-shifted viewership (88.1%, 178), followed far behind by fiction series (8.4%, 17), films (3%, 6) and magazine shows (with only 1 program). Game and talk shows were not detected in the collected sample. The in-depth analysis of the 202 most time-shifted children’s programs indicates that they correspond to only 30 different programs. “PAW Patrol” is the program that appears most times in the sample, with 56 episodes, followed by “Peppa Pig” (33), “Charlie and Lola” (13), “The Minimighty Kids” (14). The most time-shifted series are “Soy Luna” (9) and “Bunk’d” (8), both broadcast by the Disney Channel.
To better understand the phenomenon of the children’s programs with the highest time-shifted viewership it is necessary to observe the following table.
|
Channel |
Time slot |
Program |
Time-shifted viewers (thousands) |
Linear viewers (thousands) |
% of increase in time-shifted |
|
CLAN |
Afternoon |
PAW Patrol |
284 |
193 |
147% |
|
CLAN |
Morning |
PAW Patrol |
171 |
250 |
68% |
|
CLAN |
Afternoon |
PAW Patrol |
146 |
270 |
54% |
|
CLAN |
Afternoon |
PAW Patrol |
143 |
215 |
67% |
|
DISNEY CHANNEL |
Morning |
Miraculous Ladybug |
130 |
276 |
47% |
|
CLAN |
Morning |
PAW Patrol |
127 |
189 |
67% |
|
CLAN |
Afternoon |
PAW Patrol |
126 |
337 |
37% |
|
CLAN |
Afternoon |
PAW Patrol |
117 |
224 |
52% |
|
CLAN |
Afternoon |
PAW Patrol |
115 |
197 |
58% |
|
CLAN |
After-dinner |
PAW Patrol |
112 |
408 |
27% |
|
CLAN |
After-dinner |
PAW Patrol |
107 |
236 |
45% |
|
CLAN |
Morning |
PAW Patrol |
103 |
236 |
44% |
|
CLAN |
After-dinner |
PAW Patrol |
103 |
304 |
34% |
|
DISNEY CHANNEL |
Morning |
Miraculous Ladybug |
101 |
93 |
109% |
|
CLAN |
Afternoon |
Peppa Pig |
100 |
181 |
55% |
Table 2: 15 most time-shifted children’s programs in the sample. Source: Authors’ own creation.
Table 2 shows that the children’s program with the highest time-shifted viewership is “PAW Patrol”, with 284,000 viewers accumulated during the 8 days analyzed by Kantar Media, versus its 193,000 linear broadcast viewers. The 15 children’s programs with the highest time-shifted viewership in the sample have an average of 132,000 time-shifted viewers, which is a quantitatively relevant figure in terms of media consumption.
3.4. Correlation between linear broadcast time and time-shifted viewing
As for the last objective of the research (O4), it is important to know the broadcast time of the children’s programs with the highest time-shifted viewership (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Linear broadcast time of most time-shifted children’s programs. Source: Authors’ own creation.
As we can see in Figure 5, following Kantar Media’s time slots organisation, the most time-shifted children’s programs are those broadcast in the morning timeslot (31.2% from 6 AM to 2 PM) and afternoon timeslot (30.7% from 5 PM to 8:30 PM). The night slot is also relevant, with 22.3% of consumption, being the Night 2 slot non-existent and Night 3 slot even smaller (5.9%). It is assumed that the consumption of these programs in all slots where there are children present occurs primarily in the first hours of each slot (for example, from 6 to 8 AM in the morning slot): either because children have to go to school on weekdays or because it is bed time.
4. Discussion and conclusions
After having presented the research results, this section outlines the discussion and conclusions related to each of the objectives.
First, with regards to the first objective (O1), the weight of children’s programs in time-shifted consumption is relevant despite they represent only 7% of the most time-shifted content. There are several aspects to consider: first, this study only includes the 10 most time-shifted programs regardless of genres (leaving out the rest of the programs) and it is a great merit that such specialized content represents 202 of the 2,750 programs in the sample; and, second, the weight of the time-shifted audience is relevant insofar as it increases, over the eight-day period, the viewership of children’s programs by 92% (Figure 3), which is a percentage way higher than that of all subgenres, except in the case of foreign series and movies.
As for the second objective (O2), we can conclude that the passage of days is not decisive in the time-shifted consumption cycle of children’s programs since it is distributed evenly throughout the entire period of analysis. In fact, this conclusion calls into question Kantar Media’s decision to limit the measurement of the nonlinear audience to +7 days. Perhaps this period should be extended, although we understand that it is the standard established in most countries (Optimedia, 2015).
We have also concluded that animated series have become the most popular product in time-shifted viewing (O3), representing 88.1% of all the children’s programs in the top ten of the most time-shifted content over the 9-month period. The fact that children’s programs are mostly fictional is what justifies in part their success in time-shifted consumption since fiction tends to generate the greatest accumulation of viewers (Madinaveitia and Merchante, 2015) and because, at the moment, there is a sustained increase in the consumption of fiction on the internet (Lacalle and Gómez, 2017).
Finally, with regards to the fourth objective (O4), we have concluded that the most time-shifted children’s programs are broadcast in the slots with the greatest potential for the consumption of children’s content. In fact, the morning and afternoon blocks correspond to enhanced child protection time slots set by the Spanish Law on Audiovisual Communication (BOE, 2010) between 8 and 9 AM and 5 and 8 PM on weekdays. The analysis of the program grid of the channel with the largest representation in the sample (Clan TV) shows that in its early hours it does not broadcast the most popular shows in linear TV, but offers less well-known and less popular content (as children as supposed to be sleeping). So, we can conclude that these results show that the audience of children’s content wants to watch what is broadcast in their favorite traditional time slots.
Based on the previous findings, we conclude that the time-shifted consumption of children’s programs could continue to grow because children will enjoy more ease to consume what is broadcast on television in time-shifted mode (thanks to technological access at home and the facilities provided by the TV networks) and because this analysis did not consider consumption via tablets and smartphones. In other words, the measurement of the time-shifted audience does not take into account, at the moment, what happens on mobile devices, which are widely used by children to watch time shifted television.
Another possible limitation of the study is that the data on which it is based corresponds to a large sample collected in 2016 (N= 2,750) over a relevant period of observation (9 months). To this we must add that Kantar Media’s time-shifted audience measurement system remains the same (which could vary in the medium term and in turn change the interpretation of these data).
Finally, it is important to bear in mind that, as Waisman, Hidalgo and Rossi (2017: 186) conclude, “for better or worse, children have now access to all kinds of screens at increasingly young ages, and, although it seems that this trend is inevitable, the pros and cons of this early contact are not yet clear”. Television consumption is changing at a very fast pace and it is children’s behavior what will determine what happens in the coming years and in the long term in the audiovisual market.
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