Keep tweeting! Social media is impacting Nielsen ratings, Billboard, Comcast

You knew it would happen. Social media is becoming an influence on television and music ratings. I know that most of my tweeting has to do with television, movies, music and actors, so it makes sense to me.

Here's a couple of articles that were interesting.



Nielsen Now Rates Your Tweets About TV Shows - Brian Feldman - The Atlantic Wire

Nielsen has announced a new ratings system that takes into account tweets about a show as well as the audience exposed to those tweets. As Scandal fans already know, the second-screen experience has become an essential part of viewing some television shows, and Twitter is trying to make the platform appealing to media partners as a possible way of increasing revenue.

The way the system works is that a tweet that appears in a user's feed is known as an impression, so while a relatively small amount of the viewership is actively tweeting about a television show, a much larger audience is seeing the chatter. For example, via the Los Angeles Times, a show like The Voice has an online audience 50 times greater than the number of people actually tweeting. Nielsen "also has identified 35,000 Twitter accounts, created by networks, actors, athletes, professional sports teams and others associated with TV programming."

Online interaction with media is fast becoming a metric of success in various parts of the entertainment industry. At the beginning of the year, Billboard began counting YouTube views in its chart calculations, propelling one-hit wonder Baauer's "Harlem Shake" to the top position. Additionally, Nielsen itself also started counting online television views as well a few months ago.

Though Nielsen's new system is a separate metric from its main TV ratings system, it's still another way for networks and their advertisers to judge the reach of their message. It's possible that in the face of th DVR, social media is making TV appointment viewing again. It's unclear if that trend will carry over to a more asynchronous viewing event like filmgoing, but hopefully not.

Comcast Launches 'See It' Feature to Spur TV Watching, First with Twitter

Andrew Wallenstein
Editor-in-chief: Digital
@awallenstein

Comcast has made Twitter its first partner for “See It,” a new feature that will close the loop between TV programming and the social conversation that takes place around it online.

“See It” will allow TV watchers to record and watch programming directly off digital platforms, first strictly with the conglomerate’s own NBC Universal programming via tweets beginning in November. Here are the official announcements of the deal from Twitter and Comcast, respectively.

While Twitter is the inaugural partner, Comcast intends to make the “See It” button as ubiquitous as a Facebook “like” on any screen where TV content is being discussed. The company expects to build a roster of partnerships that could include other social media giants like Facebook, entertainment-centric partners like IMDB and even rival pay-TV distributors like DirecTV and brands at content companies outside its ownership like Disney and News Corp.

“See It” will allow Twitter users who are also Comcast subs to either watch live TV or access VOD programming on their set-top box or watch it directly online, regardless of their mobile device. In addition, “See It” could be used to set a DVR to record a future programing or set a programming reminder. Comcast-owned movie-ticketing service, Fandango, will also be tapped via Twitter, to enable buying theater tickets.

While only subscribers of Comcast, the largest cable operator in the U.S., who use its Xfinity platform will be able to access the full range of “See It” features, even viewers who don’t subscribe to any multichannel service will be entitled to some content, though exactly what hasn’t been determined.