The Social TV

"U.S. TV viewers are taking to Twitter to talk about TV, and the digital chatter is building steam. According toSocialGuide, 32 million unique people in the U.S. Tweeted about TV in 2012. That’s quite the confab, but what does it all really mean for the TV industry? Should networks and advertisers be paying attention? Early research on the subject from Nielsen and SocialGuide says yes."

A curation of the blog over at simonstaffans.com, together with interviews with some very sharp minds from different areas of the multiplatform storytelling fie

"There's a new No. 1 network in primetime, and no, it's not NBC. Or CBS. Or any of the traditional networks. If the digital video recorder were a network — with you, the viewer, as chief programmer — it would rank as tops among total viewers and in the key young-adult demographics".

With TV ad spending on the rise and more content choices available to consumers, garnering viewers—and corresponding ad dollars—is more important than ever.

It seems that the king that is content no longer sits on a secure and exalted throne. The baby boom of platforms and the need to fill them has caused a content creation explosion that could outpace demand, at least in regards to demand for the type that had been created for film and television and meant to form the basis of a library with revenue streams. Content is no longer the monarch that was meant to be unquestionably worshipped for decades as result of His inherent status as a divinity or at the very least his divine right.  The old kingdoms are giving way to newly formed democracies, sprouting up everywhere, on our laptops, in our hands, our wrists, our glasses and probably soon implanted in us. Rather than enjoying long, steady reigns, content now seems to subject to term limits and recall.  Content is no longer something you worship for decades. Content is something you chew for under three minutes, spit out and move on to the next piece.

"Since the 1970s, television has been ruled by the Nielsen Family—25,000 households whose TV habits collectively provide a statistical snapshot of a nation’s viewing behavior. Over the years, the Nielsen rating has been tweaked, but it still serves one fundamental purpose: to gauge how many people are watching a given show on a conventional television set. But that’s not how we watch any more. Hulu, Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Roku, iTunes, smartphone, tablet—none of these platforms or devices are reflected in the Nielsen rating. (In February Nielsen announced that this fall it would finally begin including Internet streaming to TV sets in its ratings.)"

"Super Bowl XLVII set a new All-Time Record in social TV with 30.6M social media comments. Twitter accounted for 27.7M, public Facebook accounted for 2.8M, and GetGlue checkins added another 108K".

"While there are a host of attributes by which to rank this year’s programmes – creativity, effectiveness, audience reach – the following represent the ones who were a cut above the rest. I’ve pointed out all year, notably here on MIPBlog, that branded entertainment should serve a custom, targeted purpose, specific and strategic to the brand. This select group of programmes has delivered authentic brand story in a cultural context, prioritising the entertainment or utility for the target audience".

"The app's audio fingerprinting and matching technology can identify tracks even through the noise of a loud bar, and it can distinguish between two songs played simultaneously. Based on what it identifies, it lets users read the artist's bio, buy the song from iTunes, find concert tickets and read the lyrics to verify that, indeed, the lead singer of Train just sang those words, in that order.

Shazam's lastest push brings this same functionality to television shows. Users can tap the record button in the app to take an audio sample and Shazam will match what it hears against its own database to identify the show. This is neat and all, but the real potential lies in what happens next. As it does with songs, Shazam unlocks all kinds of supplementary content and information about the show"