This story was originally published on The Spinoff.
Back in 2015, YouTube was reaching 32% of New Zealand children aged 2-to-14 every day. NZ On Air’s first survey of children’s media use in New Zealand proclaimed the Alphabet-owned video platform was “extremely popular”, sharing first place with TV2.
A decade on, and as anyone with kids can likely testify, we’re going to need a bigger adjective to describe YouTube’s popularity.
The third iteration of this research, released last week, shows YouTube (including YouTube Kids) now reaches seven out of 10 children every day. TV2 sits at 6%. Content broadcast on the TVNZ channel is being watched on demand, but the idea of a television channel — something you change by pointing a “dumb” black stick at a “dumb” black box plugged into an aerial — is fast becoming a relic.
