Netflix's 'Cards' Lags Behind Rival TV Shows In Social Media Buzz

by Wayne Friedman , March 8, 2013

Netflix-House-of-Cards Netflix's "House of Cards" viewing numbers are still a mystery. Less so are its social-media numbers, according to media researchers -- which seem to be weak versus other traditional TV shows.

"House of Cards" witnessed the largest amount of social media activity on the day after its premiere -- February 2 -- some 44,004 mentions. But this trailed well behind traditional TV premieres: CW's "The Carrie Diaries" (174,721) and Fox's "The Following" (150,640). All this according to social media watcher General Sentiment.

The company said "House of Cards" did have high "involvement scores" on Twitter. But far less in other social media areas it follows -- news and other general social-media areas.

Overall, "Cards" had a 3.8 score, well behind other debut shows starting up around that time: CW's "Cult" (6.5); CW's "The Carrie Diaries" (6.4); ABC's "Zero Hour" (6.1); NBC's "Do No Harm" (5.8), and CBS' "Golden Boy" (5.0).

Netflix isn't disclosing any viewing/usage data for "Cards." Some estimates are that around 2% to 3% of Netflix's some 23 million customers have seen the entire "House of Cards" TV series. Netflix broke ground by starting up "Cards" as the first big original series to appear on the subscription video on demand service -- offering a full season's worth of its 13-episodes in early February.

Along with the General Sentiment, the company's MediaMatch research also shows the best matches for "House of Cards" when it comes to other traditional TV shows and marketers' brands.

Best shows included: HBO's "Treme," ABC's "The Last Resort"; CBS "The Good Wife"; NBC's "Go On", AMC's "Mad Men"; FX's "Justified"; Fox's (Netflix's upcoming) "Arrested Development"; AMC's "The Killing", CBS's "Person of Interest" and NBC's "Community."

Brand matches included: Netflix, IntoNow, Viacom, Aflac, ITT Tech, Zipcar, Variety, Hulu, TurboTax and Guinness.

General Sentiment's volume and sentiment research comes from public online sources -- news media, social media, Twitter, among others. The volume and sentiment data is from January and February 2013. The "involvement" data is from February 2013. MediaMatch TV show and brand data as it concerns "House of Cards" comes from 6,194 Twitter users.

media measurement, social media, streaming, tv

4 comments about "Netflix's 'Cards' Lags Behind Rival TV Shows In Social Media Buzz".

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Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, March 8, 2013 at 3:24 p.m.
I watched the 13th episode last night and it's very compelling. Best TV show I've seen in many, many years. Kevin Spacey will surely be nominated for Best Actor. Great scripts and very high production values.
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Jeffrey Hardy from FilmProfit, LLC, March 8, 2013 at 5:49 p.m.

I agree that it is television rising to the level of engagement that a great movie does. It is as compelling as any of HBO's offerings, at least in my book. What is important about it, though, from my point of view, is that it sets a bar, and the majority of the shows it is placed against in the article are much closer to throwaways in terms of real content. It is for a different demographic, smart, likely older, with more attention span, and hungry for quality entertainment. Real entertainment meals, not just snack food. NetFlix, Spacey, Fincher, et. al. delivered that. It is a winner and could have a long shelf life.

Todd Koerner from e-merge Media, March 8, 2013 at 6:09 p.m.

As I've said before, I think Netflix missed an opportunity to exploit the buzz around HOC by releasing the episodes all at once. "Walking Dead" has been outstanding in using the passion behind the series to generate an entirely new revenue stream from "The Talking Dead."

Granted, they have different revenue models, but Netflix left the audience to founder without an adequate outlet for its excitement, whether it would have been a spin-off or via social media.

Jamil Thompson from PHD, March 11, 2013 at 9:58 a.m.

This research misses the mark; echoing Jeffrey, Netflix's HoC is niche programming,specifically produced to cater to a particular segment of it's subscribing audience, so it goes without saying that it's "social media profile" will be lower than that of traditional broadcast television series. Netflix is a subscription service in 23MM households while the CW, ABC, NBC, and CBS are broadcast networks in 130MM households; the comparison is apples to oranges.