Akili TV’s Read Along Hour was developed in partnership with UK-based Caterpillar Captions
Kenyan kids’ broadcaster Akili TV has launched a subtitled programming block designed to strengthen audience retention and improve literacy skills.
The weekday Read Along Hour, developed in partnership with UK-based Caterpillar Captions, introduces literacy grade captions to existing children’s programmes.
Based on prior trials and research, the companies expect the format to increase viewer retention and watch time by up to 3%, which they said is “a meaningful uplift in an increasingly competitive children’s content market.”
According to the companies, as broadcasters and streaming platforms compete for family audiences, parents are increasingly favouring content that offers clear educational value, particularly in markets where concerns around screen time remain high.
The Read Along Hour integrates literacy support directly into mainstream entertainment content already popular with viewers, rather than positioning education as a separate genre.
The block will air each weekday at 17:00, reaching Akili TV’s audience of approximately 1.2 million viewers across Kenya. Programmes will feature captions adapted specifically to improve readability for younger viewers, alongside vocabulary introductions and end-of-programme summaries highlighting key words encountered during the episode.
The captions have been developed using literacy and accessibility research and are designed to be easier for children to follow than conventional subtitles, enhancing comprehension without disrupting viewing flow.
Based on projected viewing patterns, Akili TV and Caterpillar Captions estimate that a child watching the block regularly could be exposed to the equivalent of around 160 children’s books’ worth of on-screen text each year. Across the full audience, this would equate to more than one trillion words annually.
“This scale is particularly significant in a region where 97% of households in sub-Saharan Africa own two or fewer books, and very rarely children’s titles,” they said.
