What Brands Need to Know About Parents’ Media Behaviors
Key Takeaways
Parents are more likely to use every major streaming platform than the general public.
Cable news and print media brands are drawing parents in, while legacy broadcasters are underperforming.
Sports properties must overcome a significant gender gap, as dads are at least 20 percentage points more likely to engage with major brands than moms.
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If there’s one thing that can strike fear into the hearts of all parents, it’s the term “screen time.” Love them or hate them, screens are a topic of extensive debate amongst those raising children: How much is too much? What programming is appropriate? How to get your preschooler to watch literally anything other than Cocomelon? But parents also have their own content preferences and habits. And the combination of their own consumption with their use of screens for kids means that parents are a key consumer group for brands across the media landscape.
Morning Consult Intelligence data, which draws on millions of survey interviews about demographics, psychographics, and user habits collected daily, reveals some key insights for brands hoping to understand how parents engage with media.
Streaming platforms serve many purposes for parents
Parents use streaming content in many ways: as an educational tool for their children, to share nostalgic shows and movies from their own childhood, or as a distraction to keep kids occupied, just to name a few. And all of this engagement is in addition to their own individual media consumption. Not to mention, as a demographic themselves they also skew young and, thus, are more tech-engaged. So it makes sense that parents would be heavier consumers of streaming platforms compared with adults in general.
But parents are not a monolith, and their content consumption varies based on some demographic nuances. The first is how old their kids are. Parents with the youngest children (under the age of 2) are more likely than parents in general to use all streaming services. This high usage speaks to the wide range of preschool-friendly content on these platforms, but also to the value they provide to exhausted parents of young kids during their down time, when evenings are naturally more confined to the home rather than spent out socializing.
Parents of young children engage with multiple streaming platforms
There are also some key differences between moms and dads when it comes to streaming behavior. Overall, dads are more likely to engage with almost all platforms than moms, although the differences are more stark among the less-used platforms, like HBO and Apple TV+. While this tracks with overall gender breaks (parental status aside, men are more likely to be consumers of HBO and AppleTV+), it reveals an important nuance for brands hoping to target parents on streaming platforms.
Cable news and legacy print brands are performing well with parents
When it comes to broadcast media consumption, it’s a different story. While parents are more likely to consume content on streaming platforms than adults as a whole, they under index in their likelihood to tune in to the Big Three broadcast networks. This trend is especially true of parents with the youngest children. Certainly it could be rooted in generation, as parents of children under 2 are more likely to be young millennials and Gen Zers, who engage less with the legacy broadcasters than older consumers.
Parents are less likely to watch broadcast networks
However, the same pattern does not hold true for cable news networks. Parents are more likely than adults in general to watch Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, and parents with young kids over index versus the general population for both Fox News and CNN. Parents are similarly more likely to engage with print media giants, and parents with young children are even more likely than parents in general to read the New York Times and the Washington Post. While some broadcast stalwarts might be struggling with parents, it’s clear they are still engaged and informed about the news.
Sports brands must overcome a significant gender gap between moms and dads
While it’s true that Americans are becoming sportier, there are still deep divides in sports content consumption between moms and dads. True to stereotypes, dads are much more likely than moms to consume content from each of the sports organizations surveyed, with a gap of more than 20 percentage points for each sport. This is also true of sports broadcasting giant ESPN, which two-thirds of dads say they watch, compared with just over one-third of moms.
The NFL is the most popular sport amongst dads and also the one with the smallest gender gap: 54% of moms say they watch football. Notably, this number has grown over the past two years, climbing 5 points between the 2022 season and the 2023 season, peaking around the Super Bowl in February of 2024 and remaining elevated heading into the current season. This pattern of course aligns with the high-profile relationship between pop superstar Taylor Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and while correlation is not causation, the NFL is certainly enjoying increased viewership from moms (and likely their Swiftie kids).
The NFL is the most watched sports league among moms and dads
It’s true, of course, that not every entity can count on a pop superstar to bring in new viewers — the NFL itself should not be simply banking on Swift to continue driving numbers. Instead, the league, as well as any other league or platform looking to increase viewership among moms, can learn from why the pop star is such a big draw (notably her relatable lyrics and compelling storytelling) and lean into those qualities in their own programming and messaging.
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