Here's a complete report from Kantar Media that attempts to measure TV audience engagement via Twitter in the UK for a year.
It's an excellent report (mostly graphs and charts) and, I believe, is something that can be replicated here in the United States or elsewhere.
If you didn't already know, television viewing habits are relatively consistent among middle class people from around the world. That is, we all have a certain number of hours in a day and many of those hours are already accounted for-- grooming/hygiene, meals, commuting, errands, work/school, family/friends, exercise, sleep. The time 'left over' after all that is typically dedicated to media consumption, with television commanding the lion's share.
Now, as you know from your own experiences, often we engage in media consumption while we are doing other things (cooking, working on the laptop, exercising, etc.)...
The bottom line is that we watch as much TV as we have free time. Most people have about 4 hours of free time per day so it's not surprising that we watch about 4 hours of TV each day (on average).
People who have less free time, watch less than 4 hours per day; people with lots more free time watch more than 4 hours per day...
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Dv4MQMdbN4Q1QzRllrOEh1dGs/view?usp=sharing
After reading the report, let me know (in the comments' section) if you think this marriage of TV ratings and Twitter metrics is a valid measurement of 'engagement.' Speaking from your own perspectives and your own industries, does engagement offer any added value economically? Why or why not?
For starters, this study made the assertion, a few times, that tv tweets skew towards entertainment and away from live sports and news. I would be interested to see the research that proves that, and also would like to know if that is consistent in the U.S. Initially in reading this study, I was on board to believe that the TV rating/Twitter marriage was a suitable measure of engagement, but towards the end of the research, the authors mention that the twitter data they considered was only immediately before shows began, and while they were on the air. I consider engagement not to be an ongoing discussion or haphazard comment during a show, but instead to be the water cooler conversation that occurs in the day or week after a show has aired. Whether it is an actual person to person conversation (impossible to measure) or facebook and twitter posts, comments, and likes, this is what I would consider an engaged viewer to be, and in that sense, likely a viewer that will return to the program the following week. For this, I feel the authors have provided some insightful research for the faction of viewers that sits with a laptop/tablet/phone and uses social media during the show, but have missed the boat for determining truly engaged viewers.
ReplyDeleteIn my view, an engaged viewer is one that will be loyal and may, through their engagement, attract other viewers. In this sense, engaged viewers are extremely important economically, particularly to MLB Network, which offers content in direct competition with other networks like ESPN and Fox Sports 1, which both offer sports debate shows in the afternoon, highlight shows, and live games. Because of this, a social media measurement for MLB Network, in my view, is two fold. Social media with anything about baseball can be viewed as a pseudo-win for MLB Network, because more interested and engaged fans means more potential viewers. Then with active social media of our own and [hopefully] quality programming, MLB Network can win those viewers, ideally engaged ones, and keep them coming to MLB Network instead of ESPN, Fox Sports 1, and others.
As an avid Twitter follower during live sporting events, I would suggest that there is a cultural difference between the UK and the US when it comes to tweeting during games.
DeleteI agree with what Jack said about cultural differences. In India the game of cricket is HUGE. If India is playing a game, almost everyone stops what they were doing and watches the game. But the engagement is more dependent on mobile messaging, phone calls or watching it together in groups. While there is a good amount of tweeting during the games, it might not accurately gauge the amount of engagement, interaction and involvement.
DeleteGreat deck, there are indeed some positive correlations between Twitter use and TV consumption. I would be curious to see a similar report discussing the TV audience in the United States which is a much larger sample in both size of audience and channel availability. Jack, any thoughts on if the insights from this report can be used comparatively to activity in the US given how different the cable ecosystems are?
ReplyDeleteMy primary takeaway from Kantar’s deck is that some shows/content are intrinsically more social than others due to their format, integration of social media, live ‘results,’ involvement of cast on social media, etc. Digital engagement will hold more gravity for those shows than others. Twitter is definitely hitching their wagon to TV engagement but I’m not completely sold that it is a reliable measure of engagement in the longterm. Most interesting to me from the graphs was the relatively low week-to-week correlation number for the 2013 season of The X Factor. With time shifting and people living their lives we can’t always expect people to live-tweet an episode and be engaged in the same way each week so the results can feel random. As someone who works in the Digital Marketing department of a network, I feel that tv-related engagement from Twitter is just one piece of the engagement puzzle and that there are several levels of engagement which networks and marketers should consider when evaluating the success of a show.
To speak to the value of engagement in general, it is extremely important and something that comes up in every facet of my work at Showtime. An engaged viewer is more likely to become an advocate for a show, bring new viewers to it, watch other shows on our network, buy our merchandise, and continue to subscribe. My colleagues and bosses do take Twitter activity seriously but it often comes across as ‘bragging rights’ [ex, according to Nielsen Social Homeland was the #1 most talked about series on social media on 10/5 and we all patted ourselves on the back] or part of the general halo effect a series with buzz. Ad-supported networks may treat this differently and use this measurement to attract advertisers. All in all I think it helps to look at engagement as an upside down pyramid with the broadest part being general consumption of the show, watching short form video and social media activity somewhere in the middle and user-generated content/transmedia content consumption, etc being at the tip.
Erin, you mention that people can't be expected to live tweet every show, and that you think Twitter is only one piece of the engagement puzzle, or pyramid that you list below. I agree with you, and I also wonder if a person live tweeting is an engaged viewer at all, or if that kind of social "engagement" is actually just a new way to watch television, especially for the younger generation. To that point, I wonder if we really have two different kind of viewers to cater to - the ones who will watch a TV show the old-fashioned way (without multitasking on a laptop/tablet/phone) and those whose TV experience is as much about the social media as it is the show content itself.
DeleteThe most engaged I remember being about a show was True Detective. Around the 3rd week of the show, people started telling me about a number of the Reddit, Gawker, and other message boards with articles and theories about the outcome of the show. For that week and maybe one more I told everybody I didn't want to ruin the experience of finding out myself, but by Week 5, I was spending loads of my free time reading all those articles, debating with my co-workers, and even re-watched the first episode. I didn't ever touch social media while I was actually watching the show - but in the weeks in between I became downright obsessed.
Excellent comments.
DeleteYes, I do believe the UK Twitter/TV study can be applied to the US as our viewing habits are remarkably similar for BROADCAST TV (save for our country's fascination with football games on TV). As for cable? Well, it's clear that we in the U.S. have a preference for binge-viewing and time-shifting and this, obviously, changes how we use Twitter. The real question is-- are we just talking 'bragging rights' or is there something more valuable here? Right now, people in the industry all seem to be in agreement that there's some value there, but, frankly, we just can't identify the unit of analysis and how much it costs yet. For example, we know that the Sunday night audience for football provides enough exposure to justify an average price tag of $627,300 for a 30-second commercial. The industry is longing for a day where we can make a similar claim for social media engagement. In other words, "such and such" a show provides a media engagement score of "blank" and is therefore worth "x dollars."
We're not there yet.
Great conversation here!
DeleteErin -- I agree with your assertions that the twitter piece of engagement indeed just that, a piece of the whole. Also think there is a bit of a divide where tweeting is concerned in relationship to UK v. US. I'd love to examine a schematic of not only twitter activity but the whole gamete of engagement vehicles that are out there (getGlue, FaceBook, InstaGram, Twitter & alike) and see if the trends stay the same in difference of US v UK.
Scott -- To your point I wonder if we are being limited by discussing 'during programming' engagement. I too think there is a fanboy (or girl) trend that arises when there are engaged fans. In agreement with you, this part of our target audience is truly the money spending enthusiasts we want to capture and identify. The downtime between episodes or games creates space for these fans to participate in pontification of the future, dreaming of side stories and discussing the prequel type content we all would love to see for our favorite shows.
Hey Erin, I sometimes wonder if TV is hitching their wagon to Twitter? As I have mentioned in our first course, in both places where i have worked, there was great desire to find ways to engage folks in the Twitterverse but I am not sure those in charge new why that was important? Or how it would be of value (to Jack's point). But they did and we do currently send out emails after every special saying whether we were trending or not. As if trending was all the difference. Question for you: Who is watching Homeland? And I wonder if tonight's premiere of The Affair will have as much activity? The latter seems like it won't appeal to the audience that might tweet as much.
DeleteI will save more for my post, but I agree with Scott, if I am tweeting while watching Criminal Mind, I am most definitely missing something important. So I think, it works best for shows like The Voice, American Idol, etc.
I would like to see this study applied to Twitter TV correlation in the states too.
If I didn’t previously think Twitter was a valid way to measure engagement of television viewing, I sure do now. TV ratings have always been based on eyeballs and for too long it was assumed that those eyes were 100% engaged with what they were watching, including commercials. As I discovered in further reading, 45% of Australian TV viewers are tweeting at the same time they’re watching. Three quarters of that 45% are tweeting about the show they are watching. (Check out this other data around that: 69% tweet a friend about what they are watching, 65% tweet in anticipation of a show, 64% quote what people are saying on the show and 57% tweet the talent on the show.) If I watched such fervid tweeting around, say, “The X Factor,” I’d be inclined to tune in to see what everyone is talking about. There’s no denying – Twitter is capturing a very engaged group and they continue to build on that momentum.
ReplyDeleteAs for whether this engagement offers any value monetarily, well… Kantar is rolling out their Twitter TV Ratings tool later this month in the UK and it looks like they can look at the unique Twitter authors and correlate their affinity to brands, programs and channels. I would think broadcasters, planners and advertisers will be very excited to pay for that data and plan around it accordingly.
It is my opinion that engagement does indeed add economic value, I think that the ability to hear from viewers inherently offers value as shows can dynamically (some day) respond to the viewers wants and desires. I am excited by the one day prospect of a ‘choose your own adventure’ show where the audience decides what fate holds for their favorite characters. (Bravo is testing the waters with it’s show ‘The Singles Project’ and starting to again look at crowd sourced content that decides the actions of it’s stars http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/bravo-developing-a-choose-your-699321) While very hard to execute, I’m hoping for a choose your own adventure that’s not unscripted.
ReplyDeleteBUT I DIGRESS, truly the value is in being able to better understand what your viewers want. To Susan’s point we need eyeballs for advertising dollars, so if we can keep your attention because we know exactly what you want to see, doesn’t everyone win?
I was intrigued by a few of the early discoveries the deck presented “One talent show, the X Factor, dominates, inspiring 8.6% of all Tweets across the year, despite being on air for only four months in the year.” I wonder if that is because there is a way to participate. While I am unfamiliar with the UK version of XFactor I am very familiar with programs (reality and scripted) in the US where viewers are encouraged to ‘particpate’ in the fun. Whether the call to action is to vote via device, or tweet @bravoandy what you think of the most recent housewives debacle, I’d love to explore the correlation between tweets that come from genuine self-publication, and others that are prompted. Certainly the prompted must garner higher metrics, but how much higher? (The deck addresses this in part on slide 15)
Another interesting finding was in relationship to the one-way street that can be engagement. “Also the correlation is largely one-way: some of the top watched shows have hardly any Twitter volume.” I wonder if this is because the really good shows people actually want to watch. At breaks they hit the bathrooms not the small screens, they may later engage with the content that is available to them but not while zoned into the program.
Sammy, I'm intrigued by your choose-your-own-adventure idea for scripted programming. It certainly sounds like a fun and necessarily-engaging innovation for TV or film. How do you think it would affect the overall engagement for a show? Do you think people would enjoy sharing stories about how the show, or episode ended for each of them, or do you think it would actually inhibit further engagement because the stories would be scattered from person to person - almost watching like a whole different show. Would it eliminate the debates, theories, and second guessing of show storylines?
DeleteSammy, I wonder whether the really good entertainment/drama shows that are being watched on TV, not reality/live competition shows, are being watched primarily by people who do not tweet as much and/or watch on television versus on a computer at a later time?
DeleteHey Sammy, Scott and Angela, personally I don't think the genre matters in terms of tweeting or not tweeting. You may not tweet during "Criminal Mind" because you're afraid of missing something but I can think of shows that are just as intricate that would be really fun to engage with others during the broadcast -- Scandal, The Blacklist (and I can't wait for the reboot of Twin Peaks in 2015!). They can be so bad that engagement is fun. I think engagement is a good thing -- whether the audience is engaged is something smart or something so bad that it becomes a virtual Twitter drinking game.
DeleteThis is an interesting approach, and in many ways a convincing approach (and a fascinating presentation at the very least). I also recognize that, of all industries, the entertainment industry probably benefits the most from twitter. As such, this sort of pairing makes a lot of sense.
ReplyDeleteBut I would be hesitant to draw too many conclusions from this because, as we’ve seen before, twitter does not lend itself well to quantifying or qualifying audience engagement.
First of all, we have no idea what sort of content value is being derived from the medium. Are people saying positive things? Negative things? Or having a conversation about a celebrity at award shows—which is really a separate conversation altogether. As we’ve said before, we can’t assume that all engagement is inherently beneficial. I don’t deny that twitter is able to “amplify the power of TV as a medium," but I would argue that Facebook is a far more reliable metric on which to gauge success to this end.
In our business, twitter is very hard to assess because there is a disconnect between the people we want to reach (people who use, or want to use, our products to do amazing things) and the people we do reach (people who are interested in observing what we do but have no specific interest beyond that). As such, the conversations that do take place are less valuable than we’d like them to be. So the challenge is always to simultaneously improve the quality of the twitter conversations and the quality of the audience—but that’s always an uphill battle.
Hey Tim, I do think that engagement is inherently beneficial. I conjure up the quote -- 'The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about at all.' In advertising, the association -- good or bad -- is all that matters. People may be tweeting hideous things about "Naked and Afraid" but it's on their radar. "Saturday Night Live" may be at an all-time low in terms of ratings but the Twitter community is active. Love it or hate it, those people are engaged.
DeleteAfter reading the report, let me know (in the comments' section) if you think this marriage of TV ratings and Twitter metrics is a valid measurement of 'engagement.'
ReplyDeleteThough i agree that there is hard to deny some correlation, I still think it is imperfect. Like my TV colleagues, I think engagement shows itself in various ways; there needs to be a level of word of mouth, loyalty, habitual viewing as well. How can I presume engagement if I don't know who among my show's fans actually tweets? I think it is a piece of the puzzle, not the whole story.
A quick supporting anecdote: The Good Wife is one of my favorite shows, there is absolutely no doubt that I am engaged. When Will Gardner died last March (see, told ya) I was in shock..but I tweeted almost an hour after the show ended because I was on the phone with friends discussing the "tragedy". Also, we have had Twitter success during some of our specials at BET, namely our RNC and DNC coverage in 2012. For both shows, we were trending, but our Nielsen numbers were still low, it was bittersweet. It was made even worse when one month later our election night show earned horrific ratings. If they were really engaged, they should have come back.
While reading the deck, it was stated that "the uplift in viewing was attributed to Twitter". I wondered how valid or reliable that information was. What if the person performing at that precise minute on X-factor was the reason more folks were watching? What if it was because of facebook conversation?
Speaking from your own perspectives and your own industries, does engagement offer any added value economically? Why or why not?
As far as value, I think it should. Once valuation of unique users or tweets in general can be determined, I think it will be a convincing part of every Account Manager's presentation. But right now, I think it is supplemental at BET. It is supporting data. During the Upfronts last spring, I remember several slides that touted the household numbers, key demo numbers for one our hit shows but the presenter in her closing remarks added verbally the amazing Twitter engagement. That told me it's cool to share just not as important, yet.
I agree with Tim’s comment that entertainment is probably the industry that is most likely to benefit from Twitter. In many instances, I believe engagement can add economic value. For example, when advertisers are looking to buy air time, it would certainly be a value add to not only put their products on screen during the most viewed television shows, but also ones that offer a highly socially engaged and vocal audience. This kind of data is an advertiser’s dream. I wonder if social engagement is currently considered in media buying. I haven’t heard of it mentioned in the past in my professional career.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting that the shows with the highest Twitter engagement correlated with the shows that had high ratings, but the reverse is not true. I noticed that reality and talent competition shows are among the most tweeted about. I also understand that it’s typical of these programs to include a call to action that drives users to social media regularly throughout the programming.
Like Scott, I also took note of UK entertainment events garnering more tweets than sporting events. From experience, I questioned this as well. I feel like every Sunday my entire Facebook feed is football commentary. Jack and Kalyani’s rationale makes sense. The Oscars causes plenty of social media buzz, there were 19.1MM tweets last year, but the Super Bowl still had it beat with 25.3 MM tweets.
Sources:
https://blog.twitter.com/2014/the-reach-and-impact-of-oscars-2014-tweets
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/news/2014/super-bowl-xlviii-nielsen-twitter-tv-ratings-post-game-report.html