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Networks Bolster Audiences With Facebook, Twitter

Using new social-media tools, such as Twitter, Myspace and Facebook, TV producers are trying to build up their old-media offerings and beef up their audiences for advertisers. John Moore, director of media services at Mullen, envisions almost all TV programming having a built-in social component over the next decade. Because young consumers "don't want an isolated TV experience," TV networks need to connect their content to social media sites and widgets, he says.

Companies that produce TV shows are trying to monitor when fans talk about the programs, then harness that chatter as another tool for sponsors. Getting the attention of someone who is texting, tweeting or talking about a TV show might be good enough for an advertiser, if you can't get them to watch the TV show in the old-school manner.

In one example, viewers of the "Ellen DeGeneres Show" watched as Jeannie, one of the program's production assistants, drove across the country in a new 2010 Terrain from General Motors' GMC. Fans that followed the show's Twitter feed, @TheEllenShow, also had the chance to participate in a gas-card giveaway from GMC. As of Nov. 6, DeGeneres had 3.6 million followers on Twitter, third only to Ashton Kutcher and Britney Spears.

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