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TEN takes to Twitter TV ratings

With shows like Offspring, MasterChef & Bachelor strong on Twitter, TEN signs on for a new audience engagement tool.

2014-03-24_1010TEN has signed on as the first Australian network to Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings, which will measure social media chatter for television shows.

As announced earlier this year, Australia will become the third country in the world to have Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings, measuring the total activity (Tweets, Unique Authors) and reach (Impressions, Unique Audience) of TV-related conversation on Twitter.

Nielsen, which supplies OzTAM with viewing data, will measure the information separately to traditional television ratings.

TEN shows that surge strongly in Twitter have included Offspring, The Bachelor Australia, Masterchef Australia and Puberty Blues.

MasterChef Australia, Offspring, The Bachelor Australia and other Network Ten shows are multi- media experiences for viewers and advertisers. Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings are an important part of our strategy to understand when, where and how people are engaging with our content. They will be an invaluable intelligence tool for all parts of our business.”

Monique Perry, Head of Media at Nielsen, added: “Social media is transforming the way viewers watch and interact with TV as they are turning to Twitter as their ‘instant water-cooler’ to engage with other viewers in real time. TV is a very strong medium – and it’s even stronger when Twitter and TV are combined.

“Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings, launching in Australia in the final quarter of 2014, will provide Network TEN with invaluable data as to who is engaging with their shows, so that their programs can be optimised for social engagement and advertisers can understand in more detail which programs have greatest audience energy.”

TEN Chief Sales Officer, Louise Barrett, said: “As the first-ever measure of Twitter TV reach, Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings will give us a new way to help our clients understand and drive social engagement with television content and their brands.

“We all know highly engaged audiences are extremely valuable to networks and marketers. Now we will be able to measure and understand that engagement and the interplay between television and social media. Network TEN is delighted to be the first Australian network to partner with Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings.”

Twitter TV Ratings launched in the US last September. While it didn’t specifically measure the demographic of the author it also didn’t put a value on the quality of the Tweet, given that social media chatter sometimes skews negatively (Live from Planet Earth, anyone?).

In TV Tonight‘s sixth Audience Inventory 45% of readers say they partake in second screen platforms every day, with Twitter third in popularity behind Internet surfing and Facebook.

11 Responses

  1. I wonder if the Twitter strategy will undermine Beamly, which Ten also has a stake in (last I checked, anyway). Also what happens to Twitter ratings if Twitter’s no longer popular in the (possibly distant) future?

  2. I think the watercooler analogy is a good one for twitter in relation to TV. It gives those who are already deeply engaged with a show a forum to discuss further. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea and quite clearly a traditional TV watchers worst nightmare, but for a younger generation so adept at multi-tasking it’s more of a seamless experience than an interruption.

    The point of whether it offers any benefit to a TV network is still debatable but I think any insight on a sometimes murky but emerging trend would be useful.

    RE the band Offspring- I believe there’s already been a hashtag mixup:
    smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/offspring-fans-share-heartbreak-with-band-in-twitter-mixup-20130808-2rj7s.html

  3. I think properly surveyed, this could be very useful and provide some surprising new statistics and insights. However personally I loathe the intrusion on Twitter comments on shows and switch off if they’re on screen. At best, they’re inane, at worst, completely distracting to the detriment of the show.

  4. Exactly alvar – you nailed it, the care factor of the followers is the key ingredient, they could just aggregate all the tweets into #couldn’tgiveaflyingf#%k or #ihavenolife

  5. I think executives are paying more and more attention to social media. It is now becoming quite common for stars of the show to tweet with fans while the episode is airing.

  6. Hopefully this does not increase the amount of twitter clutter we see on TV screens during shows.
    On some US channels, like ABC Family, they purposely create hashtags which appear on screen during a moment in the show, to encourage people to tweet about particular scenes.
    Neighbours has introduced twitter conversation well using questions and the #Neighbours tag it in the title card as they close to commercial, which is a good idea,as it does not distract from the program itself.

  7. It will be interesting to see how this rolls out, since hashtags get hi-jacked by spam and other similar topics. Heck, if the band The Offspring are in town during the same night as Offspring is on TV…

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