Commentary
This TV Season, Second-Screeners Seem Chattier Than Ever
- by Gavin O'Malley , Staff Writer @mp_gavin, October 17, 2016
Indeed, from Sept. 19 through 25, the week that officially kicked off fall broadcast season, viewers logged 83.2 million social TV interactions, according to new Nielsen numbers.
That equates to an average of 11.9 million interactions coming from 6.1 million people, everyday.
Said “interactions” include original Facebook posts and Tweets, as well as the engagement with that original content, from likes to comments to retweets.
During premiere week, Nielsen also found that the gender of “authors” -- or those posting their opinions on Facebook -- was nearly even, at 46% male and 54% female.
That said, females engaged with others’ content at a higher rate -- making up nearly two-thirds (64%) of engagers each day, on average.
Nielsen also found that people of all ages -- from young adults to their parents and beyond -- are interacting with TV on Facebook.
The first week of fall TV saw Millennials and Generation X-ers talking TV on Facebook in equal shares.
What shows are people talking about? During this week, at least, Nielsen found that NBC's "This Is Us" took home the top spot in terms of total interactions.
However, on Twitter, E!'s "Rob & Chyna," and FX's "Atlanta," featuring former "Community" cast member Donald Glover, saw the most interactions.
What should brands take from these findings?
For one, “By analyzing these age and gender demographics … networks can develop focused social media content, and agencies can refine TV plans to maximize how advertisers are connecting with their key audiences through social,” according to Nielsen.
Gavin O'Malley edits MediaPost's Mobile Marketing Daily and MoBlog column. Follow him: @mp_gavin. You can reach Gavin at gavin@mediapost.com.
As I pointed out on another incarnation of this report, if the average daily audience of TV during the week Nielsen reported was about 250 million people and they spent well over 5 hours watching TV shows the fact that 6 million--per Nielsen----made or received a bit less than two tweets about a TV show they were watching, is not exactly a gigantic response. In fact, a typical broadcast TV show garners millions of viewers but only a tiny fraction of them---perhaps only 15,000-20,000---are socially engaged while watching, or in the hours immediately before and after the telecast. Moreover, most of the small number of tweets are about program content----not the commercials.