social media relating to tv usage

Viewers are looking for more meaningful interaction with the shows they watch.
Stars/celebrities are taking an active role in social media.
Content producers are trying to engage viewers in new ways

Among people aged 18-34, the most active social networkers, social media buzz is most closely aligned with TV ratings for the premiere of a show. A few weeks prior to a show’s premiere, a nine percent increase in buzz volume correlates to a one percent increase in ratings among this group. As the middle of the season approaches and then the finale, the correlation is slightly weaker, but still significant, with a 14 percent increase in buzz corresponding to a one percent increase in ratings.

At the genre level, 18-34 year-old females showed significant buzz-to-ratings relationships for reality programs (competition and non-competition), comedies and dramas, while men of the same age saw strong correlations for competition realities and dramas.
http://summify.com/story/To4NifXQRG-GAUJI/blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/the-relationship-between-social-media-buzz-and-tv-ratings/

The recent MTV Video Music Awards garnered the highest ratings in the show’s history. It also set a new high water mark for concurrent tweeting: VMA-related tweets came in at 8,868 per second while the program aired. Although it’s tempting to draw a line between the awards show’s high ratings and the audience’s enthusiastic social engagement, there is no real way to determine if ratings drove the Twitter bus, Twitter drove ratings or the two were in separate busses that happened to be on the same road at the same time.

right now more of a value add: “Advertisers want to come along because we’re packaging the cross platform experience.”

bravo thinks it helps first time ratings: he said that engaging users with second screen experiences increases viewership during a program’s first airing. Rather than recording programming and watching it later, viewers watch programs during the premier broadcast in order to participate in the ongoing second-screen conversation. “People want to meet in real time and talk about it as it is happening.”

According to Hsia, Bravo’s social experiments drove 10 percent ratings growth.

ight not be a single metric, comparable to a Nielsen rating, on which networks and brands can rely.
“You can’t forget the interactive element,” she said. “There may not be a simple apples to apples way to measure the impact of social media on ratings.”
http://www.digiday.com/stories/can-social-tv-drive-ratings-points/


hink about how you’ll measure the growth of the online community as well as show viewership. Look at quantitative metrics such as followers or retweets, but also observe more qualitative engagement like conversation sentiment. You may also be looking at other factors such as an increase in traffic to online or offline retail outlets for ancillary products such as merchandise or DVDs.

Do you have access to talent? Will that talent engage viewers as themselves or as their characters? What online owned media channels can you leverage? Does the show already have a Twitter account? Finally, archival footage, brand partners and physical venues can also become weapons in your intermedia arsenal.


Uncovered in all that data is a “statistically significant relationship” between online buzz and television ratings. When TV viewers, particularly those under 35 years, buzz online – tweeting, friending, liking, sharing, etc. - about TV shows the ratings go up, slightly. A 9% increase in online buzz about a program’s premiere yields a 1% ratings increase. As a program’s run progresses to finale more buzz (14%) is necessary to pump up that 1% in ratings.

Beginning of the end of cable company proprietary set-top boxes.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=160095

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that its Xbox 360 would now carry free and subscription services in most major markets around the globe. now carry channels like ESPN, HBO, Bravo, Syfy, BBC and services like Comcast Xfinity, Verizon FIOS and TT&T and previously Web-based content like Google's YouTube.
ed their streaming services. Am I being a bit extreme? I don't think so, and here are my reasons why:
Connected Xboxes today are already used for TV viewing on average of one hour per day. That dwarfs the average Americans Web video viewing by by a factor of 10. More great content on that platform will only drive that number, and ratio, higher.

significant that several of the largest multichannel video distributors have signed up on the Xbox deal. I'm sure many of them would like to be out of the consumer hardware business. Just wait until we see large volumes of smart, connected TVs. They will become like Xbox too.

Could herald a la carte channel purchasing. With ESPN and HBO doing deals here, how long can it be before other, must-have networks, offer their channels on a stand-alone basis - AMC and "Mad Men," anyone?

ransforming television into an IP-based “app” increases the need for a fatter (higher ARPU) broadband pipe, playing into cable’s competitive advantage (the focus of the aforementioned 6/3 blog), significantly reduces capital expenditures and at the same time dramatically improves the user interface/navigation of an MVPD’s programming
inging TV Everywhere to the television is significant, as most consumers continue to want to watch the overwhelming majority of their daily video content on the largest screen - the TV. This is something Netflix’s Reed Hastings has made clear numerous times, based on the behavior of those streaming Netflix (most Netflix watch instantly viewing occurs on the TV).
e wonder how long before an MVPD tries to distribute multichannel video outside the infrastructure they own/control - using the broadband pipes of others (requires consent of programmers and franchising authorities we presume, but technically feasible when you think about what Verizon and Microsoft are enabling).

Read more: http://www.btigresearch.com/2011/10/05/verizon-takes-the-lead-in-going-box-less-cable-industry-needs-to-embrace-their-dumb-pipe-future-far-faster/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter#ixzz1a88T3BYG

tv online efforts to watch

Article on why tv networks fleeing online

others to watch
distribution points such as Hulu have begun to act as networks or studios. (Hulu, which has just been up for sale, is actually owned in common by several of them.) Sony Pictures' Crackle has some of the Web's flashier offerings, including "The Bannen Way," with its wiseguy con-man hero, stylish split screens and hot-girl assassins; "Angel of Death," penned by comic-book writer Ed Brubaker, with Zoe Bell ("Tarantino's #1 stunt woman") as a hired killer who acquires the compulsion to kill her old masters; and the sci-fi "Trenches," picked up from Disney's now-defunct Stage 9 Digital, which sports impressive "Battlestar Galactica" special effects. All have completed their single seasons but remain available for download in the timelessness of the Web.

Of all the emerging neo-networks — also including My Damn Channel (home to the immigration comedy "Gigi: Almost American," starring Josh Gad, Tony-nominated for "The Book of Mormon"), and Babelgum, which hosts the clever sci-fi sitcom "Date a Human" — perhaps the most compelling is Koldcast, which bills itself as "The Other TV" for the sheer volume and breadth of its offerings. Most of what I've seen there is fairly accomplished, which is to say that much of it is not derivative or artistically immature. (Many of these shows have their own websites or YouTube channels as well.) Among the interesting scenery there is "Ruby Skye P.I.," a Canadian tween mystery; "Verse," a mystery story that features cameos from several estimable poets and the New York underground legend Taylor Mead; and the popular "Anyone But Me," co-created by "thirtysomething" vet Susan Miller, a teen lesbian dramedy that makes up in sweetness and likeness to life what it sometimes lacks in polish.


For the moment, Web-exclusive video is far from a moneymaker. One study of 250 new media titles made available on YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and other major digital platforms revealed that such entertainment attracted sizable audiences — about 1.3 billion views. But the payback to producers was relatively paltry: a combined $15 million paid by 13 major distributors last year.

"This is a tough business to make money in," said Arash Amel, the digital media researcher at IHS Screen Digest who conducted the study. "Original new media brands are just voices shouting in the wilderness, without the support of a major media marketing campaign to make them stand out for the consumer."

That's why digital studios like Vuguru script and structure their new media series with old media in mind. Fox International Channels, News Corp.'s international multimedia business, acquired rights to "The Booth at the End," which it aired on its pay-TV channels, as well as on the Web.

"They're rolling it out online, putting it on TV; they're experimenting, cross-promoting," Tanz said.

The studio is applying familiar "old-media" business models to underwrite the cost of digital production. Vuguru strikes foreign distribution deals that can cover roughly half a given project's budget, in a funding approach borrowed from the world of independent film. And it structures its original series like interlocking Lego bricks that can be snapped together or pulled apart for viewing on multiple platforms.

YouTube's Technical Hiccups

Dan Rayburn reminds that YouTube player does not currently have the ability to auto-detect when a user should get the HD copy instead of the SD copy. And why all the buffering issues?

Internet Provides TV with Virtual Water Cooler

* Big Olympics, big Super Bowl, big Grammys, big VMAs - Twitter, Facebook buzz helps attract big audiences.
* Nielsen Company says one in seven people who were watching the Super Bowl and the Olympics opening ceremony were surfing the Web at the same time.

Cheaper to Distribute on Cable than Internet

Mark Cuban has been the laytech person's best explainer about how the Internet can't support high quality video. He writes, "There are maybe 3 companies that can stream to 1mm or more simultaneous users. Google, Limelight and Akamai. And that 1mm simultaneous users isnt just for your content. That is for EVERYONE’s content and they cant get much beyond 2mm without big problems. More importantly, if you want to stream your content to millions of users at once, its going to cost you an incredible amount of money." He concludes that if newcomers want to serve these audiences, its cheaper to pay the cable companies to make a new channel. He says "Maybe someday over the top video will be a realistic alternative to traditional distribution of content, but its not now and its not this year or next or the next and probably not the year after that."

Distribution Cheaper on Cable than Internet, Actually

Mark Cuban has been the laytech person's best explainer about how the Internet can't support high quality video. He writes, "There are maybe 3 companies that can stream to 1mm or more simultaneous users. Google, Limelight and Akamai. And that 1mm simultaneous users isnt just for your content. That is for EVERYONE’s content and they cant get much beyond 2mm without big problems. More importantly, if you want to stream your content to millions of users at once, its going to cost you an incredible amount of money." He concludes that if newcomers want to serve these audiences, its cheaper to pay the cable companies to make a new channel. He says "Maybe someday over the top video will be a realistic alternative to traditional distribution of content, but its not now and its not this year or next or the next and probably not the year after that."