TV Ratings Based on Tweets

Nielsen has a problem.

The company whose ratings of tv shows have become a global standard faces increasing challenges to its primacy as the arbiter of commercial success. The challengers are the networks and producers of existing shows whose ratings have declined, often precipitously. The belief is that people are spending more time online or engaged in other pursuits (to say nothing of women working outside the home), so are dedicating less time to traditional daytime and evening viewing.

The producers, carriers and sponsors of these shows are not happy because it is costing them millions in revenue and profit. Fewer viewers means less income for the networks and producers, while the same numbers mean less effective positioning for the sponsors, not something that senior executives or investors want to see.

Nielsen is also being buffeted by the tech community who think its systems understate the degree of decline for television. Their complaint is that more advertisers would switch to the internet if Nielsen's numbers reflected their beliefs.

In an attempt to address all of its critics, Nielsen has announced a new rating system based on Twitter commentary. They are not supplanting the traditional ratings but supplementing it with this new approach. Their hope is that the Twitter rating system will provide the company with some cover for both sets of complaints.

The move is further evidence of the powerful trend towards convergence. The various platforms and channels are interacting, playing off of and contributing to each other in ways that are still evolving. Nielsen's initiative is a clever though overdue acknowledgement of that trend. Whoever it contradicts will be unhappy, but it is better for everyone involved to know rather than speculate. Better to redeploy resources if necessary than to continue to pursue unproductive strategies. JL

Jolie O'Dell reports in Venture Beat:

Nielsen has just announced a new form of television ratings: the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating will tell us all how socially engaging a given program is based on Twitter users’ conversations and updates. It’s one small step for Twitter, one giant leap for the legitimacy of second-screen data for marketing purposes.

With a new agreement between the two entities, Nielsen will have data from Twitter that will allow it to create a “syndicated-standard metric around the reach of the TV conversation on Twitter.” Both parties say the new metric should be ready for the beginning of the new television season in the fall of 2013.

“Ultimately, we have one goal for this new metric: to make watching TV with Twitter even better for you, the TV fan,” writes Twitter media chief Chloe Sladden today on the company blog.

For its part, Nielsen said in a statement that it considers Twitter the best source of real-time social data on TV shows. Most importantly, the vast majority of tweets are public rather than private, meaning Twitter data is easier to access than data from just about any other social source.

Twitter data won’t replace Nielsen’s current system of TV-tracking boxes; rather, it will act as a supplement in an industry (the ad industry) where more information is always better.

“The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating will serve to complement Nielsen’s existing TV ratings, giving TV networks and advertisers the real-time metrics required to understand TV audience social activity,” reads the Nielsen release. “These ratings will build on top of NM Incite’s SocialGuide audience engagement analytics platform.”