A year-end review from Trendrr reveals that sports (31%) and reality (17%) are the primary genres generating social TV buzz, combining to account for about half of social TV conversations between January 1 and November 30 2012. Drama (11%) and comedy (5%) also played a role in the social TV landscape, with the remaining 36% of conversations taking place around the aggregate of other, miscellaneous TV genres.
Details from a CTAM Co-Op Study, “How Chatter Matters in TV Viewing,” released in December by the LA Times, also demonstrate that sports programs are socially engaging. Live sporting events are the most-talked-about programs before they happen, during their airing, and during commercials. When it comes to the genres talked about right after the show, movies and dramas lead, while comedies and movies share the mantle as most-buzzed-about the next day and after.
The CTAM study also finds that viewers are more likely to talk about shows the next day or after (83%) or right after the show (75%). (The study was not limited to social media conversations.)
Entertainment Events Among Most Socially Engaging Telecasts
Returning to the Trendrr review, the data shows that entertainment specials also generate their fair share of social interactions. Looking at the most engaging telecasts by month (from January through November), 6 of the months featured an entertainment (non-sports) event as its most engaging program. In fact, September’s MTV Video Music Awards counted as the most engaging telecast of the year through November, ahead of February’s Super Bowl. (The list excludes political events.)
Other Findings:
- Social TV interactions continued to grow apace in 2012, with Trendrr measuring more than 800 million interactions through the first 11 months of the year.
- NBC was easily the most engaging network of the year, with the Olympics a big reason why. Removing sports and special programming from the equation leaves FOX edging out NBC as the top network.
- With an average of 80,000 social interactions per episode (and more than 250 telecasts per year), “SpongeBob SquarePants” was the program with the most social activity. But, the average “X Factor” episode generated more than 615,000 social interactions. (This list excludes sports and special events and includes data sources from the day of the telecast only.)
- 52% of social TV engagement over smartphones was done via the iPhone, with the remainder taking place over Android (30%) and BlackBerry (18%) devices.
About the Data: Trendrr.TV’s “Second Annual Year End Stats Report” is based on data on thousands of programs taken from interactions on Twitter, public pages on Facebook and applications such as Get Glue and Viggle.
