This study examined the relationship between parent-child co-viewing of television and the cognitive development of the child. Both survey and experiment methods were employed to determine the participants' television viewing habits and their cognitive achievements after watching a pre-recorded programme under different conditions. The participants were five-year-old pre-schoolers from a childcare centre in Beijing, China. The findings show a positive relationship between parent-child co-viewing of television and the cognitive performance of the child as far as a specific programme was concerned, but long-term effects of parent-child co-viewing on the general cognitive development of the child could not be established owing to the limitations of the study.