A new report presented at MIP Junior shows that as people start to get together again in real life, live events are driving family time around the TV. Amalgamating ratings data from local agencies, French market research firm Glance has found that televised events like sports and concerts are leading the way when it comes to co-viewing across Europe.

According to Glance’s “Kids TV Report,” which looked at TV ratings in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK during the first half of 2021, live events ranked first among family audiences in all five countries. Sports were at the top of the list in four regions, with the Sanremo music festival winning out in Italy.

While live event co-viewing may be on the rise, animation is still number-one with family audiences when it comes to kid-specific content. The study found that animation accounted for 66% of the 20 most-watched children’s shows in the first half of 2021. Content choices were regionally dependent, but preschool series PAW Patrol, Super Wings and Ricky Zoom landed near the top fairly often. In Italy and Spain, however, live-action content was more popular than animation.

When it comes to streaming, the study found that European children are likely to watch the same series on SVODs as they do on linear TV. In Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, Netflix’s top-three most-streamed series by kids were Peppa Pig, Teen Titans Go! and PAW Patrol. Anime also cracked the top 10 on Netflix in France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

In terms of emerging trends over the past six months, content focused on environmental issues, game shows and series featuring kids just being kids seem to be growing in popularity.

Kids watched an average of one hour and 21 minutes of TV daily during the first half of the year, with viewers in southern Europe averaging more screen time than their northern counterparts. Imported productions (51%) dominated the top shows during this period, followed by domestic productions (33%) and co-productions (16%).