If the headline above looks familiar, you’ve probably seen it in last month’s issue of Wired magazine. The article offers an in-depth look into America’s new TV viewing behaviors. Measuring audiences as they engage with content across new platforms and devices is critical;  “Get it wrong and the $70 billion television industry is in jeopardy” writes Wired’s Tom Vanderbilt.

In the new TV landscape, Trendrr is paving the way by measuring audience engagement  across multiple data sources. See more of our company and stats in the full article.

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Tournament Takeaways

Total 2nd Screen Activity (by round) – Year Over Year

• The biggest year-over-year gains, in terms of total tournament related 2nd screen activity, occurred in round 3 (6.6M interactions total).
• This growth is due in no small part to #FGCU’s win over San Diego State, which earned them nearly 760K 2nd screen interactions and also a ticket to the Sweet16.

Average 2nd Screen Activity (by round) – Year Over Year

• Average 2nd screen activity trended upward as the 2013 tournament progressed, dipping slightly during the round of 16.
• This is in contrast to average activity during the 2012 tournament, which lagged during the middle rounds – again, audiences seemed to find the story-lines in this year’s tournament more compelling, and this was reflected on the 2nd screen.

The Cinderella Effect on 2nd Screen Activity

• #FGCU generated more than 690K 2nd screen interactions with their 2nd round upset over Georgetown, and were at peak moments capturing nearly 75% of the real-time tournament related conversation.

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After Sunday’s blow-out loss against the Clippers, and with only five games remaining, the LA Lakers’ chances of making the playoffs are becoming remote.

While this is worrying for the Lakers team and front office, from a 2nd screen perspective, it should also concern the NBA.

The Lakers are the league’s most social franchise, and when they play on nationally broadcast TV, activity around the game reaches nearly 475k interactions on average.

The team that could edge LA from  this year’s playoffs is the Utah Jazz, and although they are a young and talented squad, this team elicits a much lower 2nd screen engagement – just 67k interactions this season on average (about 1/7 that of the typical Laker game).

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Trendrr’s Marc Hernandez, Managing Director Europe,  is in France for MIPTV this week. As a part of the world-class conferences series delivered by the top executives from the entertainment industry’s leading companies, Hernandez joins a panel discussion on ‘Turning Big Data into Big Revenue’:

Big Data’s one of the biggest buzzwords of 2013. Social TV’s biggest data gatherers join forces to discuss how to put analysis into context, creating money-making opportunities as you build your content to scale.

Speakers:

Jeroen Doucet, Managing Director, ExMachina Strategies & Concepts
Marc Hernandez, Managing Director Europe, Trendrr
Ed Haslam, SVP, Marketing, YuMe

Moderator:

Gavin McGarry, President, Jumpwire Media

When:

Wednesday, April 10

15.00-15.30

Where:

Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France

MIPCube Talks, Esterel Level 5

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• Sweet 16 activity alone increased by 278%; this increase was mostly attributable to the Florida Gulf Coast University’s Cinderella storyline (2012’s tourney lacked a Cinderella in the Sweet 16 round).
• Activity around the Elite 8 round increased significantly as well – up 156% over 2012’s Elite 8.

• The increase around Elite 8 round games was unfortunately attributable to a gruesome injury suffered by Louisville’s Kevin Ware, and the sympathetic comments and posts that it elicited (e.g. the hashtag #PrayForWare)
• The outpouring for Kevin Ware also contributed to the game’s 1M+ social interactions (a tournament high), and a frequency of nearly 2 interactions per user.

• Activity around both CBS and TNT Sweet 16 games increased; however the cable network was the round’s leader (CBS had more activity in 2012).
• This is likely a function of how compelling these games may or may not have been, so the #FGCU’s Cinderella appearance on TNT helped drive the network’s activity (1.5M).
• However, activity around CBS’s Sweet 16 action did nothing to disappoint, improving by 226% over 2012.
• Due to the Cinderella buzz around TBS’s lineup, activity around the cable network’s Sweet 16 games was up an incredible 335%.

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On Sunday March 31, season 3 of The Walking Dead came to a dramatic close. The finale inspired more than 1.3 million 2nd screen interactions from a highly engaged audience. Below, we take a look back at the full season and highlight the similarities between the two halves of S3:

• 2nd screen activity around The Walking Dead episodes during the 2nd half of S3 has mirrored that of the 1st half.
• From a 2nd Screen perspective, the strategy of broadcasting the season in halves has been incredibly effective – TWD has created a situation where they are essentially benefiting from 2 premieres, and 2 finales.
• In 2nd Screen Activity as in traditional TV ratings, premieres and finales generate the biggest numbers.
• The midseason premiere was 18% higher than the season premiere. Comparatively, the season finale was up 43% from the midseason finale.

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On Sunday March 31, Game of Thrones returned to HBO with the highest 2nd screen activity levels in the series’ history. Below are a few stats and comparisons to the show’s previous season premieres.

• 2nd Screen Activity around the S2 premiere increased more than 300K from the S1 premiere.
• In the lead up to S2, activity peaked with 71K interactions – in the lead up to S3, activity had already hit 96K by 3/22/13
• March 31st’s S3 premiere set a series record with 778K social interactions – more than doubling the previous GoT benchmark (368k)

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Total Activity by Round – Week 1

• Total 2nd screen activity around the first 3 rounds of the men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament was up 119% over 2012.
• Round 3 experienced the biggest gains, up 327% over 2012.
• Frequency peaked during Wichita State’s third round upset of Gonzaga, with 3.3 2nd screen interactions per user.
• The Albany vs. Duke second round contest earned the largest daily activity share for week 1 with nearly 29.5% of the conversation.

Total Activity by Network – Week 1

• CBS broadcasts continued to be the tournament’s most engaging, averaging 339K 2nd screen interactions per contest.

• TBS broadcasts increased 2nd screen activity by 170% – more than any other network.

Big Ten Tournament Games 2013 – Week 1

• The BIG TEN was considered by many to be the country’s best conference entering the tournament with 7 bids.
• Iowa State vs. Ohio State generated more activity than any other Big 10 game with 661K 2nd screen interactions.
•  The 3 most engaging B1G tournament games were broadcast on CBS (the truTV broadcast of Wisconsin’s first round upset loss was #4)

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In mid-February, Trendrr introduced an additional layer of metrics including unique social users, share (of voice) and frequency. These metrics in more detail include:

• Unique – An aggregate value of unique individual users participating in 2nd Screen TV-related conversation
• Share – A program’s 2nd Screen activity shown as a percent of all cable or broadcast social activity on a given day. This will help to contextualize a program’s social activity vs. other programs
• Frequency – The average number of times 2nd Screen users have a show-related interaction to help you better understand the passion levels of your base and what drives engagement

This added layer of metrics helps you to better understand your socially engaged audience. It helps to grow the industry and capture the full value around the content that is being created.

Now that these metrics have been in place for some time, an analysis was done to provide context on how shows stack up. Of course, the awards show genre almost doubles the other genres, ranking the highest for average frequencies with an average of 2.85 social interactions. Coming in second were dramas (average frequency 1.57), which surprisingly surpassed sports (average frequency 1.49), which came in third.

Rounding out the genres, reality, telenovelas, comedies and talkshows have an average frequency of 1.40, 1.39, 1.31 and 1.26, respectively.

*February 17 – March 17, 2013

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This Friday March 1, the Trendrr team will be in Miami for The Social TV Summit. The Summit begins with The Latin Social TV Awards and in anticipation of the event we put together some more detailed information specific to the Hispanic market (see below). If you are attending and would like to find out more about how we can help grow your business please get in touch.

Trendrr Key Offerings:

• Language agnostic Social TV analytics platform.
• Approximately 100 unique Spanish language programs across 4 major networks: Univision, Telemundo, UniMas and MundoFox (January 2013).
• In-house Spanish speaking analysts.
• On-Air integrations and Social TV engagement executions.
• Graphics and data visualizations.

Spanish Language Networks Social Activity Gains:
Univision:
Total network activity in January grew 5.3x from last year

• Twitter activity in January grew 4.7x from last year
• Facebook activity in January grew 2.7x from last year

Telemundo
Total network activity in January grew 2.3x from last year

• Twitter activity in January grew 2.6x from last year
• Facebook activity in January grew 1.5x from last year

Examples of Actionable Insights from Audience Behavior:

During awards season the Oscars, Brit Awards, and Univision’s Premio Lo Nuestro (all airing within a single week this year) saw dramatic increases in social activity. While each special event more than doubled in activity year over year, Premio Lo Nuestro had the highest percentage growth.

Viewers of the different awards ceremony all engaged more heavily through mobile devices, however mobile engagement was over 10 percentage points higher for Premio Lo Nuestro (68%) than both the Brit Awards and the Oscars. While iPhones were hands down the preferred devices for viewers engaging with the Brit Awards and the Oscars, Premio Lo Nuestro viewers relied just as heavily on Android and BlackBerry devices.

Our data helps our clients track social activity to better target and understand audiences.

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