AdAge

TV, the Second Screen

In a majority of family households with tablets and smartphones, TV is no longer the kids’ first choice for entertainment.  Mobile devices offer versatility, simple user interface and a ‘personal’ viewing experience.  As such, in households where tablets and smartphones are accessible, they’ve now taken the lead with kids as the preferred way to enjoy and explore video content. TV has become the ‘second’ or even third screen for many of these kids. 

Parents in nearly half of these households say that when their kids misbehave, they take away their tablet and make them ‘watch TV instead’ as punishment – creating a generation of kids for whom ‘TV is punishment.’ 

And, when given the choice between dessert or more time on their tablet more kids choose the tablet. 

This trend in media and platform preferences, supported with data from a Miner & Co Studio study, has implications for TV networks, cable and satellite companies, streaming services and content creators as they market and develop entertainment for the next generation.  

*Study included in-home ethnographies and a survey fielded among 800 moms and dads of kids ages 2 to 12 who live in the United States and watch at least some video content on a tablet and/or smartphone. The margin of error is +/- 3.46%