Does the growing prevalence of mass media in the developing world represent a potentially untapped opportunity to improve educational outcomes in these countries? This paper presents empirical evidence on the academic impact of children’s access to and use of media at home. Using the 2003 Learning and Educational Achievement in Punjab Schools (LEAPS) dataset and multivariate analysis, it finds that weekly hours of media use has a significant positive impact on test scores, although the overall effect of media varies according to how the variable is operationalized. This study also finds that school quality and child characteristics are important determinants of academic performance, reinforcing the findings of the LEAPS researchers (Andrabi et al 2007). For education policymakers, these results provide some support for the potential role of mass media in enhancing learning levels in developing countries. Such findings underscore the need for further research on the media-education relationship, in order to maximize the potential benefits of mass media for developing countries’ education sectors.