Yoto Player

The physical device cultivating a radio listening habit amongst children

Radio listening amongst under 10s is no longer reported on by the UK radio industry’s measurement body, RAJAR. However, you don’t need an up-to-date trend line to know that radio listening amongst younger generations is under threat from an array of other media choices.

Part (but not all) of the problem is the dearth of radio stations aimed at younger ears.

Alongside CBeebies Radio (which is available online via BBC Sounds), Folder Media’s Fun Kids is plowing a fairly lonely furrow for children’s radio in the UK. Capital Disney closed way back in 2007 and Little Radio, which launched in October 2019, is no longer available.

Available on DAB and online, Fun Kids has been broadcasting since 2005 and launched 8 new online stations this January. Not bad for the middle of a pandemic.

Another company which is doing something interesting in the radio-for-kids space is Yoto. Founded in 2015, Yoto had a vision for a connected, screen-free audio device which they brought to market with the help of a 2017 Kickstarter campaign.

Whilst the primary selling point of the Yoto Player is stories and songs distributed on physical smartcards (similar to Toniebox’s figurines), pressing one of the two buttons without a card inserted toggles between Yoto Daily and Yoto Radio.

Yoto Daily is a 15 minute on-demand daily show with many of the hallmarks of traditional radio - a topical, presenter-led mix of quizzes, listener jokes and birthday shoutouts.

Yoto Radio is a single stream of child-friendly music.

Having learnt the Frozen and Julia Donaldson Yoto audiobooks by heart, my 3-year-old daughter now actively chooses to listen to Yoto Daily and/or Yoto Radio before she goes to sleep every evening.

It strikes me that there’s something about the simplicity (a single button) and lack of choice (1 speech programme, 1 music station) that’s effective in this context.

Our house is littered with Amazon Echo and Google Home devices and my daughter knows her way around the Spotify app, but she often struggles to decide what she wants to listen to (“there’s too much choice, Daddy” is a common refrain).

I’ll be interested to see if and how the Yoto radio proposition evolves and whether other audio producers, distributors and device manufacturers take any lessons from Yoto’s approach.