Open Children's Media Index

A transparent database of formal-feature measurements for children's television — pacing, colour, motion, flashing and audio. Every metric is measurable, and every score shows its component parts. The composite that combines them is a configurable summary, not a validated construct.

This index applies the Children's Media Analysis Toolkit (CMAT) to publicly available programming. Analysis is automated and reproducible. This project does not issue verdicts on appropriateness — it presents labeled measurements that researchers and caregivers can interpret in context. All findings are correlational.

Children's programming

Average FFC scores are configurable 0–1 composites. The displayed bands are descriptive reference bands, not normative recommendations or viewer-effect thresholds.

† High within-show variability (FFC standard deviation > 0.08). Aggregate reflects the sampled episodes; individual episodes may differ meaningfully. See the show page for the full distribution.

‡ Composite withheld. This show has no cached per-episode results, so its FFC cannot be re-derived against the current normalization ceilings — and a figure frozen under earlier ceilings is not comparable with the re-derived scores beside it. The component metrics are measurements rather than rescalings and are published as normal.

Comparison baselines

Included for cross-genre reference only. These titles are not children's programming and are not scored against child-audience presets.

† High within-show variability (FFC standard deviation > 0.08).

Language analytics

These figures describe how a show uses language, not how well a child will understand it. Comprehension depends on a child's age, vocabulary, and experience. The numbers come from automatic transcripts of each episode's dialogue (generated by OpenAI's Whisper speech-to-text model), so only shows with usable transcripts appear here.

• WPM — words per minute. How fast the dialogue is spoken. Lower means slower, more deliberate speech. Typical children's shows land around 80–120 WPM; ordinary adult conversation runs 130–160 WPM.
• TTR — type-token ratio (0–1). A measure of vocabulary variety: how many different words are used compared to the total words spoken. A show that repeats the same handful of words scores low; a show that keeps introducing new words scores higher. Children's shows commonly fall between about 0.20 and 0.45. (Longer episodes tend to score lower simply because common words keep recurring, so compare shows of similar length with care.)
• Lexical density. The share of words that carry direct meaning — nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs — as opposed to connecting words like "the," "is," and "and." Higher means more information packed into each sentence. Casual conversation sits around 0.40–0.50; denser, more instructional speech runs higher.