The closing Q&A session on the first morning of the 2012 ASI European TV Symposium in Prague
suggested there was a fair degree of cynicism about a profitable relationship existing between social media and TV.
“Is the time people spend doing something else while watching TV a new behaviour or just new versions of old?” the panel were asked.
Jeremy Toeman, CEO of digit and Margo Swadley, head of audiences at BBC Vision commented that multi-tasking always happened and still does but there’s more of it now.
“But does this mean less engagement?” was the next question. Swadley said: “Research suggested that viewers do disengage but often come back more engaged”.
A further question asked: “Is Twitter largely gossip or marketing message driven and not very representative of broader views? Is the actual programme appreciation quite different to what Twitter might indicate?”
NBC Universal’s president of research and media development, Alan Wurtzel said: “I know of one network that was changing story lines based on Twitter feeds. I find that scary. Currently it is just an interesting little thing. Twitter ratings are not equivalent to TV ratings in any way. It scares me that anyone might see them like that. It is very difficult in TV to create engagement via Twitter, the jury is still out.”
“And when it does work wonderfully in terms of Twitter audience levels, broadcasters can’t make any more money out of it”, added Toeman. He reported that Twitter collator, Trendr ranked the country’s biggest network, CBS, fourth on its analysis. “Twitter is just not representative of national demographics, it does represent a high proportion of egotistical people” added Toeman.
SecondSync CEO Ted Littledale felt that Twitter activity was helping to increase live viewing with viewers just not wanting to be left out or behind the action on social media.
Littledale concluded that there were more significant behavioural changes among viewers. “Binge viewing – watching several episodes in one extended viewing session from catch up – is a truly disruptive change that could have major impacts on broadcasters and schedulers.”
For further information on the asi television symposium, please visit www.asi.eu.com or email asi@dial.pipex.com
