Kantar, the global leader in market research and data analytics, unveils the results of its latest media audience measurement study focusing on children: Africascope Kids.
The program covers the capitals of four sub-Saharan African countries: Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Senegal.
It provides a snapshot of consumption and insight into media trends among children aged 4 to 14, representing a total of 10.6 million children.
KEY RESULTS
According to the Africascope study, 94% of children aged 4-14 watch television daily for an average of 3 hours and 59 minutes. This is a significant increase compared to the previous wave, which saw a record drop in children's viewing time.
More than half of the time spent watching television by 4-14 year olds is devoted to youth channels.
In 2023, children's channels account for 59% of the time spent watching TV by 4-14 year olds, who spend 2 hours and 21 minutes watching children's channels and 1 hour and 38 minutes watching programs alongside adults.
Logically, this share decreases as children grow older: the audience share of children's channels among 4-6 year olds is 73%, while it is only 49% among 11-14 year olds.
These results are perfectly consistent with those observed in the latest study covering the year 2022.
The most watched channels
| Top 5 PDAs | Top 5 Weekly Audience |
| Disney Channel | Disney Channel |
| Télétoon+ | Piwi+ |
| Piwi+ | Télétoon+ |
| Boomerang | TiVi5 |
| TiVi5 | Tiji |
Good receptivity to television advertising
72% of children aged 4 to 14 pay attention to advertisements when watching television, with particularly high scores in Senegal (82%) and Côte d'Ivoire (78%), where there is a preference for toy advertisements.
75% of parents report that their children ask them to buy products they have seen in television commercials, with 52% saying this happens often.
Internet access remains limited, but its use is evolving
35% of children aged 4 to 14 have access to the Internet. This represents a sharp increase compared to the previous wave (+34.6%).
18% of children go online at least once a week, mainly via mobile phone.
The main activities carried out on the Internet by child Internet users are watching online videos (53%), followed by playing video games (37%) and listening to music (33%), searching for information for school (32%) and downloading applications (30%).
Parents' expectations regarding programs that combine learning and entertainment
In terms of content, parents believe that children's programs should primarily promote the values of family (44%), work (40%), and education (36%).
They believe that youth programs should enable their children to learn new things about their cultures and the world, while also teaching practical skills.