Less than one in five people online follow TV on Twitter
Less than one in five (18%) people online follow the shows they’re watching on TV via Twitter, according to a new report from Strategy Analytics, which identifies the six main ways people watch TV today.
Traditional TV viewers, dubbed ‘couch potatoes’ in the report, are the largest segment but only account for a third of people online who watch TV. This group never phone or text people about what they are watching and hardly ever use social media to follow a programme.
The next biggest group, ‘OTTers’, account for one in four people and are the most likely group to go 24 hours without watching TV. They prefer to watch shows via online or over-the-top services, with 95% of OTTers catching up with missed programmes on a computer, tablet or smartphone.
‘Couch chatterers’ account for 12% of TV viewers. They are similar to couch potatoes but are two and a half times more likely than the average person online to phone or text others about what they are watching on TV (90% compared with 37%, respectively).
As with couch potatoes, none of this group use Twitter to follow what they are watching but are much more likely than the average viewer to use another device while watching TV (80% vs. 65%).
Three in ten people are ‘multi-screeners’, which the report splits into a further three sub-groups.
‘Indifferent’ and ‘moderate’ multi-screeners each account for 11% of people online who watch TV. ‘Indifferent multi-screeners’ are the least interested in TV of all six groups; 83% use another device whilst watching TV and are highly likely (84%) to phone or text people about what they are watching. 91% use Twitter to follow a show.
‘Moderate multi-screeners’ do 45% of TV viewing on computers, tablets or smartphones, and 90% go online if they have missed a show. However, this group is the second most likely (66%) to have a pay TV subscription.
‘Manic multi-screeners’ account for just 7% of people. Along with indifferent multi-screeners (51%) they are the only group where over half (55%) of TV viewing is conducted on other devices. Despite this, this group is the most likely (74%) to have a pay TV subscription.
Manic multi-screeners are also most likely to use another device whilst watching TV (97%), the most likely to phone/text about a show (96%) and most likely to use Twitter on a weekly basis to follow a show (100%).
“The traditional way broadcasters and advertisers have discussed TV audiences for 70 years – by age and gender – is becoming increasingly irrelevant and outdated,” said David Mercer, principal analyst at Strategy Analytics.
“People within a traditional group, say 18-34 year old men, can watch TV in completely different ways so new behaviours are as important as demographics when it comes to planning for all elements within the TV industry – be it content, scheduling and advertising.”
Mercer said that broadcasters and advertisers need to learn the intricacies of the relationship between TV and new devices.
“For instance, there’s been a lot of hype about how Twitter is changing TV viewing but, in reality, only two types of people are remotely engaged with ‘Twitter + TV’,” he said.
“Consequently, strategies heavily focused on this would be a big waste as it’s irrelevant to over 80% of TV viewers.”