76 pc Indian parents prefer YouTube over OTT platforms for kids animation content: Survey

Most Indian parents prefer YouTube over OTT platforms for their kids’ watching animation content, says a recent study by a Japanese entertainment and technology company.

The survey by Akatsuki uncover the key decision-making factors that influence a parent when it comes to the selection of animation content for their kids along with consumption habits. The study titled ‘What Indian parents want from kids animation content’ was done as part of Akatsuki’s plans to foray into the kid’s animation space in India.

The survey shows that 69 percent of Indian parents feel that the COVID-19 wave has increased their child’s content consumption habits leading to a 4-6 hours screen time on an average. The majority of parents (37 percent) also shared that their kids watch animated content unsupervised.

Parents chose English as the most preferred language for animation content and among the vernacular languages, Tamil, Telugu, and Bangla are the top three preferred.

Interestingly, the survey revealed that even with the advent of some ruling OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney + Hotstar, 26 percent of parents chose Television, making it one of their top three platforms to watch. The leading platform of choice however continues to be Youtube with a strong preference shown by 76 percent of participants, followed by Netflix at 57 percent.

The top 5 voted content IPs according to the survey are: Cocomelon, Peppa Pig, Shinchan, Doraemon, and Tom & Jerry.

Akatsuki, having its business focuses on the development and publishing of mobile games and animation, conducted among parents from 10 metros of India which included Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Kanpur, Guwahati and Bangalore.

Throwing some light on what makes an animation IP click with kids and parents alike, the survey discovered that ‘Entertainment’ is the biggest parameter with 64 percent respondents choosing it over ‘What makes their kids happy’ (45 percent), educational benefits (35 percent), moral values (22 percent), local characters and storylines (11 percent).

In terms of consumption habits, television (60 percent), smartphones (49 percent), and laptops (24 percent) came across as the most popular and used devices for daily viewing.

The survey shows that 75 percent of Indian parents still rely on word-of-mouth when it comes to choose and discover new content ideas for their children, followed by 28 percent of parents discovering content through OTT recommendations, 20 percent via parenting communities, and the remaining 10 percent via traditional news outlets. The Week