How Social Media Ranks Fall TV's Hit Shows

20111003-NEWS--0022-NAT-CCI-AA_-- 9/30/2011 12:32 PM Page 1 22 October 3, 2011 | Advertising Age THE MEDIA ISSUE How social media ranks fall TV’s hit shows We asked Nielsen to tell us the best-rated series* from the start of the fall TV season—and then had buzz-tracker Trendrr.tv and check-in service GetGlue give us their numbers.Here’s how and why they do and don’t match up NIELSEN TRENDRR.TV GETGLUE RATINGS SOCIAL BUZZ CHECK-INS SOME EPISODES SOME SHOWS’ 1 OF SHOWS STARS ARE BECOME SOCIAL BETTER ‘EVENTS’ SOCIAL Two and a Half Men The “Two and a Half Men” Two and a Half Men SALESPEOPLE Dancing with the Stars (CBS, Sept. 19) 16.7 season premiere became (CBS, Sept. 19) 510,175 New “Two and a Half Men” (ABC, Sept. 19) 19,801 a social flashpoint thanks star Ashton Kutcher, for to the departure of Charlie instance, has more than Sheen; fans (and nonfans) 7.7 million followers on wanted to render their Twitter. verdict on his absence and 2 his replacement. Dancing with the Stars Dancing with the Stars Big Bang Theory,2 episodes (ABC, Sept. 19) 12.3 (ABC, Sept. 19) 185,681 SOME SHOWS (CBS, Sept. 22) 16,277 average HAVE MORE (32,554 total) SOCIAL ‘HOOKS’ Reality competitions DIFFERENT give social-chatterers 3 DEMOS plenty to latch onto and SOCIALIZE comment on—from DIFFERENTLY favorite judges and NCIS Ratings champ “NCIS” is Criminal Minds contestants (especially See above for aggregate score for (CBS, Sept. 20) 12.2 fronted by 60-year-old Mark (CBS, Sept. 21) 146,481 when it comes to the two back-to-back BBT episodes Harmon; fans of the show elimination time) to and the network it airs on specific challenges (CBS) tend to skew older— and even wardrobe and less likely to be tweet- malfunctions (hello, 4 happy or hip to new Nancy Grace!). services like GetGlue. 2 Broke Girls Dancing with the Stars Results Two and a Half Men (CBS, Sept. 19) 11.5 Show (ABC, Sept. 20) 90,259 (CBS, Sept. 19) 10,732 5 SOME NETWORKS ARE SOME PUSHING NETWORKS SOCIAL MORE ARE NCIS: Los Angeles THAN OTHERS Big Bang Theory,episode 1 REWARDING Dancing with the Stars (CBS, Sept. 20) 10.3 Is your favorite show (CBS, Sept. 22) 52,809 THEIR MOST Results Show (ABC, Sept. 20)6,901 promoting an official SOCIAL FANS Twitter hashtag—like CBS, for instance, #2BrokeGirls”—onscreen incentivizes viewers of and in off-network “The Big Bang Theory” to 6 promotions? That can check in to the show on make a big difference in GetGlue by sponsoring social buzz. “BBT” collectible stickers that GetGlue mails out to Dancing with the Stars Big Bang Theory,episode 2 superfans. NCIS Results Show (ABC, Sept. 20) 9.8 (CBS, Sept. 22) 49,391 (CBS, Sept. 20) 5,769 Source: Nielsen Household Ratings (Live+SD) Source: Trendrr. The Trendrr.tv Total Activity score includes tweet Source: GetGlue. Viewers can “check in” to shows at GetGlue.com or volume, public Facebook updates and GetGlue check-ins through GetGlue’s suite of free mobile apps *For the purposes of this comparison, we looked at new and returning prime-time series. News, sports and special-events programming are excluded. SO WHY DO NETWORKS SEEM TO CARE SO MUCH ABOUT SOCIAL TV? n Show-to-show social-TV ratings might not always correlate to Nielsen n Networks are increasingly n Sinking social engagement over time can serve as the canary in a ratings in a linear sense, but rising and falling social engagement from making the case to advertisers that coal mine for network execs. For instance, declining social engagement week to week for individual shows can be very illuminating for networks. a highly engaged audience is icing for former social-TV champ “Glee” signaled that the show was losing “Social buzz does tend to signal tune-in intent,” says Trendrr CEO Mark on the cake of solid ratings—icing steam. Last year’s season premiere garnered over half a million Ghuneim. “People who are socially engaged with a show this week are worthy paying a premium for. tweets; this year’s season premiere dropped by roughly 200,000 much more likely to also tune in next week.” tweets—and Nielsen ratings fell 29%. —SIMON DUMENCO.

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