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Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

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Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#161

Post by moate »

apetresc wrote: post #56
moate wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average parents?

That just can't be the average. That must be the very top of the curve. For it to be the average, with the very bi-modal distribution coming from parents who have no-screens policies, the average in that other cluster would have to be like 8 hours a day. I just don't believe that's possible with any frequency.

I mean "mean" parents, not median parents. Sure, there's no-screen policy parents, but those feel (citation needed!) like a less common occurrence than "some" or "unrestricted" screen parents.

If no-screen parents only represent 10% of the total population, they're not going to do as much pulling the number down as you might think. There's no way there's an equal distribution on this stuff among between "none" and "some" so they won't weight as heavily towards lowering the curve. Also, it's a pretty wide age range. What people allow a 2 year old vs a 5 year old to do/consume is a world apart.

There's all sorts of things that go into it. I agree, without deep diving into methodology, these numbers are a whole lot of "but what does this actually MEAN"?

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#162

Post by duxup »

moate wrote: post #149
duxup wrote: post #16

Even if just for my own sanity ... I like the lack of commercials and the resulting stable levels of volume. My kids don't watch a lot of TV / screen time but when they do I want to be able to monitor it, and yet also maintain my own sanity.

Oh my god this! Why is is so hard to balance the audio between commercials and shows?

It's not hard, they don't want to do it, they want loud commercials to get your attention.

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#163

Post by lostlogin »

turk73 wrote: post #44
bargl wrote: post #10

Worth. Every. Penny. I went to my parents house with my son. He was 4. They turned on cartoons. Then he said, "Dad why'd you change the show? I don't want to watch this." It was a commercial. I had to explain commercials to my son. It was at that moment I realized how much of my tv watching as a kid was commercials.

I have had the same experience. Also, some relative gave us some kids' VHS tapes and I still had a player so I figured why not? Well, let me tell you why not: Nobody has time for rewinding to take place and the low-quality video and audio is quaint, but it's dead tech. The VCR and all the tapes got recycled shortly thereafter.

> Nobody has time for rewinding

VHS could be stopped where you wanted to stop. Who hasn’t played the frustrating dance where streamed video buffers, plays some other part or jumps back to where you were. VHS rwd and ffw buttons just worked.

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#164

Post by luckylion »

chapium wrote: post #83
blobbers wrote: post #29

"The average 2-5 year old is spending over 1,600 hours a year watching television." This seems nuts to me. That is 4.5 hours a day! For a 2 year old? Who are these parents...

Yeah, I'm going to call bs on this one. Perhaps they are including kids who have to have an ipad in front of them at every meal and every walk in their stroller?

I don't know, but here's a very similar stat from 2009 that makes it sound like this is only for TV: https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2009/tv-viewing-...

New findings from The Nielsen Company show kids aged 2-5 now spend more than 32 hours a week on average in front of a TV screen.

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#165

Post by chrisweekly »

legitster wrote: post #144

In a related note, I have come to realize the different levels of quality in children's television: - Public television shows (PBS) stuff is so lovingly created and charming. You can really tell they had experts and creatives work side by side to craft positive stories. Even if it's not particularly exciting. - Super-smart and creative shows (like the first couple seasons of Spongebob, or Gravity Falls). Great shows…

Gravity Falls -- yeah! I can't stand Spongebob, but are there other shows like GF?

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#166

Post by chrisseaton »

Raphmedia wrote: post #155
chrisseaton wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is hard to market a product that teach kids to code if you cannot show the product to kids. You show it to their parents, don't you?

You can but even then you risk not following the rules correctly. > The Consumer Protection Act prohibits advertising that targets children. To determine whether advertising is directed at them, the Act stipulates that it is necessary to take into account the context of the advertisement’s presentation and the impression it gives. > The Act also provides three criteria that correspond to the following questions: > •…

So you could advertise a coding educational product during commercials of a late-night talk show, that talk about the educational benefits of the product?

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#167

Post by jmpman »

My kids made breakfast for Mother’s Day. During breakfast, I had them explain all the steps to my wife. One of them said they opened the “Ghost man roll”. Wait, what?? “You know daddy, the roll with the Ghost man on it”, thinking for a moment - oh, that’s the Pillsbury dough boy. A once classic American icon is now unnamed in the current generation. All thanks to NetFlix.

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#168

Post by neovive »

The most jarring statement to me is that "kids 2-5 spend an average of 32 hours per week in front of a television set." That seems quite high for that age group. As a parent, I try to limit my kids to 2-3 hours of media per day on weekends and 0-1 hour on school nights--including TV and video games. Most of their screen time these days is a combination of Netflix and Xbox. I don't count Scratch programming or Khan Academy as screen time.

I try to find a balance, knowing that I grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons and playing games on Apple II, Commodore 64 and NES.

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#169

Post by smhenderson »

Insanity wrote: post #50
lmkg wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, my favorite show growing up was Transformers. So technically even the show itself was a commercial.

That probably goes for a lot of shows for kids :)

I'd say if a kids show is not on public television it most likely is a commercial for a toy or a vehicle for a number of other ads for unrelated toys.

And even for me and my five year old, there is plenty of Danial Tiger gear out there to buy! The difference is they make and sell the toys but they don't advertise them during the show. It's not much but that subtle difference is what allows me to sit down and watch 30 - 60 minutes of these shows a few times a week with her.

As others have mentioned, even NetFlix "sells toys", just not overtly like network TV does. But just watching PJ Max, Trolls, etc. makes my five year old grand daughter want everything she sees when we go to any store that has these shows' stuff for sale.

Both of them are still better than numbing their minds with 8-12 minutes of intense, flashy commercials for every 30 minute show they watch though.

Re: Netflix Saves Kids from Up to 400 Hours of Commercials a Year

#170

Post by mehrdadn »

legitster wrote: post #144

In a related note, I have come to realize the different levels of quality in children's television: - Public television shows (PBS) stuff is so lovingly created and charming. You can really tell they had experts and creatives work side by side to craft positive stories. Even if it's not particularly exciting. - Super-smart and creative shows (like the first couple seasons of Spongebob, or Gravity Falls). Great shows…

> - Public television shows (PBS) stuff is so lovingly created and charming. You can really tell they had experts and creatives work side by side to craft positive stories. Even if it's not particularly exciting.

> - Colorful garbage. It's a lights and noise show, with huge focus on licensing. Cartoons of my era are particularly susceptible to this (Dragonball Z, Yu Gi Oh, Transformers, etc).

What PBS shows are you imagining? Clifford? Sesame Street? I never thought they were targeting the same demographics as the 'colorful garbage' like Yu-Gi-Oh (early elementary vs. late elementary/middle school). Also a lot of other popular shows (like Spongebob) seemed more like colorful garbage to me than things like Yu-Gi-Oh that you lumped in there.

And what about classics like Tom & Jerry, Roadrunner, etc.? There wasn't much particularly educational or colorful or really anything about them but man now I'm tempted to go watch them again.

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