Children's Favourite Toy Range

Dubit, a specialist youth research and marketing agency, recently undertook a survey of the impact of children's television shows and their toys, with Doctor Who's licensed merchandise proving the most popular - 32% of the 500 7-11 year olds surveyed owning toys from the range. Nickelodeon's SpongeBob Squarepants came second at 29%, with other high scorers including their Peppa Pig and Dora the Explorer, Cartoon Network's Ben 10, and CITV's Horrid Henry.

Also, children were able to rate their toys on a scale of 1-5, with Doctor Who toys again faring well, achieving joint top with 4.7 alongside the BBC's In The Night Garden.

The surveys also took into account how aware children actually were of the programmes their toys come from; Doctor Who achieved a very high 90% awareness, with only SpongeBob Squarepants known by more at 94%. SpongeBob also fares best in terms of those who actually watch the programmes at 57%; here the Doctor was third at 52%, with Horrid Henry taking second place at 56%.

More details on the survey, including other programmes surveyed, can be found in a Toynews report.