Nielsen Twitter TV Rating Coming Fall 2013

[Lencho01]

http://badassdigest.com/2012/12/20/this-feels-like-good-news-the-twitter-nielsen-metric/

Published December 20, 2012 by Meredith Borders
This Feels Like Good News: The Twitter Nielsen Metric

Nielsen finally stops relying solely on the boxes of old white people.

The Nielsen method of television ratings has felt hopelessly outdated for years, and I've been railing against it for almost as long. With streaming and DVR, it's impossible to measure a show's impact on an audience based only on what the Nielsen families are watching live - but live viewing is still the only viewing that really counts when it comes to advertising dollars, and that's all that matters on network television. So what to do?

Well, this is a start. Nielsen and Twitter are teaming up to create the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating for the American television market. The companies are establishing an as yet undefined metric to determine the reach of television conversation (TV talk, if you will) on Twitter. Now all that live-tweeting people do that drives you so crazy because they're spoiling the latest Breaking Bad episode that you won't watch for a few more days could be the very thing that saves Breaking Bad from cancellation! (Or, you know, a show that actually needs saving.)

“The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating is a significant step forward for the industry, particularly as programmers develop increasingly captivating live TV and new second-screen experiences, and advertisers create integrated ad campaigns that combine paid and earned media,” said Steve Hasker, President, Global Media Products and Advertiser Solutions at Nielsen. “As a media measurement leader we recognize that Twitter is the preeminent source of real-time television engagement data.”
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“Our users love the shared experience of watching television while engaging with other viewers and show talent. Twitter has become the world's digital water cooler, where conversations about TV happen in real time. Nielsen is who the networks rely on to give better content to viewers and clearer results to marketers,” said Chloe Sladden, Twitter’s vice president of media. “This effort reflects Nielsen's foresight into the evolving nature of the TV viewing experience, and we’re looking forward to collaborating with Twitter ecosystem partners on this metric to help broadcasters and advertisers create truly social TV experiences.”
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Yeah! Everybody's happy about it! And it does feel like a long delinquent step forward into the modern method of television viewing, which has very little to do with the Nielsen ratings of yore. With smart phones and iPads, audiences aren't just passively watching these days, and companies are all about interactive marketing. You know, synergy and all that other buzzword stuff. While I don't care about any of that, I do care about unconventional shows that don't perform well under traditional Nielsen ratings being rescued from cancellation because their audiences are the live-tweeting type. And live-tweeters got dollars to spend, advertisers! We're buying more than the cranky old CBS-dwellers, trust.

So yeah, this feels like good news to me! And just in time for 2013 - not a minute too soon, Nielsen.

 

[Sawyer]

Welcome to the 21st century, Nielsen.

Now, maybe it's time for me to get one of them Twitters...

 

[Primal Slayer]

They need to add other things like dvr to the overall rating system.

 

[Sawyer]

Yeah, but at least this is slight progress. For them, slight progress = huge step forward.

 

[NJCaliboi]

Nielsen company knocked on my door 3 years ago and interviewed my family for a box. The funny thing was that they said how everything was random and the lady stressed that the randomness was the key to it being fair, but the irony was that after her lengthy interviews she said we didn't fit what the company was looking for? Ummm....someone explain to me what's random about choosing what u want and discarding others that don't fit that mold.

At that time I was living with my aunt and uncle and we were all over 21. We had two TV's in the house but I guess we weren't the right demos. Had we been chosen we would have had to sign confidentiality papers while the boxes were in our homes. After that experience I am now very skeptical of all things "Nielsen".

 

[Baramos]

I'd never even heard about those mythical boxes until recent years. We got one of those TV log booklet thingies in the mail. I basically filled it out in advance with the shows I watch and left it sit until it was time to mail it out.

The fact that they are still relying on snail mail for some of their ratings which basically gives them the ratings for a show 7-8 days after it airs is ridiculous in and of itself.

 

[Lencho01]

I've never heard of them using mail for their data. I've only heard of the boxes.