To wonder just who is watching CBBC & CITV for most of the day?

[WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll]

Not one of life's biggest problems by any means, but I often wonder this very thing.

TV channels aimed squarely at school-aged children air continuously throughout the day. They generally aren't suitable for and/or of interest to pre-schoolers and I can't imagine most adults sit there watching them on their own.

I suppose home-schooled children might watch a bit if they have a short break or whilst they're having their lunch, but presumably, they spend most of the day actually learning and not watching or being distracted by the telly? Unlike CBeebies, it's not even like many of the programmes are especially educational - they're mainly just entertainment.

CBeebies, which is aimed at up to 7-year-olds, clearly realise this as, when they show birthday cards that parents send in, they tend to feature those for kids aged 4+ in the early morning slot, before school, and then show the younger kids' ones during the day.

So exactly who is watching them on Mondays-Fridays during the day in term time? Is it just children who are off sick but not needing or refusing to sleep - or are off for precautionary purposes post D&V? Or are parents recording their kids' favourite programmes to watch later (like in the old pre-multi-channel days when BBC2 showed very strait-laced 'school' programmes from 2-4am with the intention that teachers would set the VHS to record them for use in school!)?

And in the case of CITV and the other commercial ones, how much can they possibly be earning from advertisers with such a tiny likely audience?

That's a good point actually about the advertising. Clearly someone is watching them or the advertisers wouldn't pay. Are they simultaneously aired in other countries with a time difference?

They've already paid for the channel slot. Presenters are minimal. It doesn't cost the channel much if anything to keep some shows running throughout the day.

My understanding is that many advertising contracts will be general ones where the channel is free to put the ads on X amount of times over a time period e.g. 20 times per 24 hours for a month (or perhaps with specific broad slots e.g. 20 times between 7am to 9pm). Naturally you would assume these are the cheapest ad contracts and can be used to fill out a marketing budget. I think the marketing budget for many kids products are likely quite small, when you think of some of the toys being advertised do you see that company spending £500k to advertise it? Think how many units it would have to sell to get the profit to recoup that. Premium time slots during big, popular shows can be sold individually (e.g. John Lewis first christmas ad broadcast) but I doubt this happens on Kids TV.

Very good points, NRPDad.

I also wonder about the late-night marathon 'Teleshopping' sessions that some channels switch to after the night's broadcasting has finished. As I understand it (I may be wrong), TV advertising generally works on the principle that people are willing to put up with a few minutes of varied commercials between the programme(s) that they want to watch - if they aren't using the time to go for a wee, put the kettle on or aimlessly channel-surf - but who in their right mind would just keep watching six solid hours of the same advert on a loop, not instantly switching over or off when their programmes have finished? Or are they hoping to catch people who fall asleep in their armchairs in front of the TV and then stir for a few minutes, much later, and end up getting gripped by the exciting merits of the slendertone weight-loss belt?! This has NEVER happened to me, of course, oh no.

Mind you, having said that, QVC and similar are still apparently going strong....

My children don't watch anything live at all. Everything has been previously recorded.

They get very frustrated when we go away and they can only choose from what's on at a particular time.