Commentary
Prime Time Check-Ins Explode With Season Premieres
- by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, October 2, 2012
The second-screen dynamic has been evolving throughout the last year as prime time TV viewing proves to be smartphone and tablet time in many U.S.
households. One of the most popular check-in services on the mobile app and Web ecosystem, GetGlue, disclosed comparative figures around this season’s premieres for the Fall network lineup.
Growth has been well into the triple digits across most of the major shows.For Sunday evening’s return of ABC’s “Once Upon A Time,” GetGlue
registered total activity around the show of 93,774 interactions, which includes check-ins, comments and likes. That represents an increase of 253% over last year’s premiere of the new program.
The ABC show was the most active Sunday program on the GetGlue roster.
Virtually every show with comparables to last year saw triple-digit increases over last
year’s levels of second-screen activity, at least as measured by GetGlue. Showtime’s “Dexter” saw 70,916 actions, up 220%. ABC’s “Revenge” had 50,196 actions,
up 390% over last year. Interestingly, the longer-lived animation series from Fox actually saw the largest year-over-year spikes in activity, with “The Simpsons” up 571%, “Family
Guy” up 444% and “American Dad” up 756%.
Each genre of programming on TV has demonstrated different levels and types of second-screen activity. Reality
programming typically proves to be the most popular, because audiences love to vote for, champion and diss specific on-air talent. But according to GetGlue, animated comedy like the Fox shows attract
their own kinds of activity, with audiences often quoting funny lines back to one another across the second-screen channel.
Imagine Bart Simpson with an
echo.
Steve Smith is Editorial Director of Events for MediaPost