Social Media Buzz For Showrunners And Stars Drives Interest by David Goetzl

Is social media chatter, opinion and condemnation enough to gain insight into the success rate of a new fall show? Can social media activity make or break a show? It's hard to say the TV business knows the answer yet -- it probably never will -- but it is increasingly clear that the more endorsements that trickle through blogs, forums, Facebook and Twitter, the better. ...Read the whole story

  • Upfront: CW Adds 50 Hours Of Shows, New Digital Studio by Steve McClellan

    The CW adds 50 hours of programming to its lineup of shows, including its first full summer slate of original series. The CW also unveiled a new digital content effort called CDW, a digital in-house studio that will create short-form programs for digital streams including online, mobile and tablets. ...Read the whole story

  • Hex Factor: ARF Forum Showcases New Social TV Analytics Platform, Offers Brand Insights Too by Gabe Samuels

    In what might be described as media's long-tail wagging its biggest dog, researchers are tapping social media to help television programmers better understand viewer reaction to and experience with TV content. During a demonstration at an ARF Thought Leader Forum in New York, Crimson Hexagon demonstrated a new platform capable of mining more than 100 billion social media data points to provided detailed -- and sometimes surprising -- insights into the way people watch television. ...Read the whole story

  • VOD Advertising Hits A Bullseye, Time Warner To Deploy BlackArrow System-Wide by Joe Mandese

    In a development that could help advertisers and agencies tap into the burgeoning video-on-demand advertising marketplace, one of the largest cable TV operators, Time Warner Cable, this morning said it would utilize BlackArrow to power a "system-wide deployment" of real-time, dynamic ad insertion into its VOD programming. ...Read the whole story

  • TV Venues Depend On Demo by Wayne Friedman

    Teenagers watch TV in less common areas of the home -- such as bedrooms and basements ---while 12-17s spend an outsized share of game console usage, surpassing their TV time. The most traditional places for TV viewership among 35 -to-64-year-old viewers continue to be the living-room areas. ...Read the whole story

  • Viacom Leverages Social Media To Aid TV Experience by Wayne Friedman

    A new Viacom study on social media says viewers engage around seven different types of social TV activities -- online or offline -- a week. The No. 1 request for content via social TV services is full-length episodes (88%), followed by sneak peeks of new episodes (75%). ...Read the whole story

  • Analyst: Too Early for Web Video to Affect TV by Ross Fadner

    Although some big brands have said they plan to move significant money into digital, Barclays Equity Research analyst Anthony DiClemente doesn't think their efforts will move the TV spending needle by very much-and he has the numbers to back it up. ...Read the whole story

Smartphones Are First Choice For Second Screen by Steve Smith

According to IAB-sponsored research, people juggling multiple screens in the living room may actually be more attentive to ads. Interestingly, smartphone and tablet owners appear to be using their second screens for different things. ...More

  • Is Social TV a Gimmick or a Must-Have? by Daisy Whitney

    There's no question that social video, social media and social TV are hot. Nearly every network has some sort of social media tie-in for a show, be it USA Network's recent work with Viggle for "To Kill a Mockingbird," or Discovery integrating tweets into shows. Are social tie-ins like this a gimmick or do they last? ...More

  • Stealing The Stage, Dish Hops Into Upfront Discussions by Wayne Friedman

    Dish's Network's attempt to allow consumers to "Autohop" through commercials in the blink of an eye may seem ground-breaking to some. In fact, it's just a hand grenade into what NBC Universal chief Ted Harbert calls a threat on our "eco-system." ...More

  • Return-Path-Data Lexicon: Middleware by Jane Clarke

    Middleware is ubiquitous to computing infrastructure, but also holds special importance in the world of return-path data and measurement. RPD middleware not only provides a range of data capabilities including interactivity and addressability, it also may contain strains of usage data that need to be captured and merged with other collections of data from the box and associated streams. Let's look at the terms and definitions associated with middleware: ...More