Nielsen Adds Facebook To Social TV Ratings

New submitter AnneMackay451 writes with news that the Nielsen media audience measuring company will now include social media buzz into its ratings. From the article: "Nielsen wants to know what TV shows are getting the biggest buzz on Facebook. The measurement firm is expanding its Twitter TV Ratings to include data from Facebook and, eventually, Instagram. The new reports are being rebranded as Nielsen's Social Content Ratings. The new ratings will measure online buzz about TV programs and streaming originals when they launch later this year. Social conversations will be measured both during a show's airtime and 24-hours-a-day."

cue the bots

[turkeydance]

start buzzing

In five years

[Anonymous Coward]

They're desperate to find an accurate measurement now that traditional TV audiences are moving online.

But, the fact of the matter is, Nielsen's ratings matter way more than they should, and advertisers are starting to catch on.

In five years, Nielsen will either be a completely different company or a much smaller one.

Networks will boost their own shows with advertisers much as any large dot-com does, via extensive sophisticated ad-ops and close marketing partnerships across multiple teams. These are old com

Given that they don't have access to raw feeds...

[tlambert]

Given that they don't have access to raw feeds... I don't see how they will get useful data out of this. Their bots aren't going to see everything someone posts, any more than you get to see all of your friends posts (unless you friends pay for the posts to be sponsored content). At best, they're going to get a partial snapshot of the currently trending issues, with no way to validate the statistical significance past a rather large margin of error.

Re:

[Rob Lister]

No doubt. But data with a large margin of error is still better than no data at all. What matters is if they can sell that data, margins be damned, at more that what it cost to gather it.

Re:

[gstoddart]

Yeah, or sooner or later people will figure out Nielson hasn't got accurate data, hasn't in decades, and other than a feel good number they don't really have a product.

Nielson can't measure Netflix, and Netflix laughs at them when they say they can.

Re:

[Rob Lister]

Nielson has numbers as good as their error bars. Really. And that is a commodity. The bigger the bars the lesser the commodity, sure, but still a commodity. As to Netflix, since Netflix doesn't show commercials, why would they matter? It might be interesting to know who is watching Netflix most, or instead, or whatever, but that is not the market Nielson is in.

Re:

[Vrekais]

Do they need access to any feeds at all? It might not be a bot searching for show names but Facebook providing data to their system on show mentions similar to how "Trending" section to the top right of facebook. That's not based on my friends that's based on the whole of facebook, all with out access to the feeds of the rest of facebook.

Saying all that a ridiculous number of people have their profile set to to public in full.

Re:

[alvinrod]

At least it's far less creepy than alternative methods that are being used. [wired.com] I can only imagine the less scrupulous software in the future that will start hiding that functionality in the app without notifying users.

Re:

[avandesande]

How do you know that? I don't see methodology mentioned in the article, but it certainly seem like a good situation for FB to provide Nielsen with some sort of service.

Re:

[tlambert]

How do you know that? I don't see methodology mentioned in the article, but it certainly seem like a good situation for FB to provide Nielsen with some sort of service.

Because I know how the Facebook "feed" system works compared to, for example, Twitter.

I also know that Facebook's monetization model absolutely *depends* the on the idea of "sponsored posts", and I've seen a lot of marketing company probes of the "Share this post or the kitten dies!" variety, with hosting URL track back to the image hosting sites log files, in a vain attempt to game the Facebook monetization model in order to get the free marketing that you used to be able to get on Facebook, when your frie

Worthy Endeavor

[Rob Lister]

Reading the article I think it is a worthy thing to do. I'm surprised they did not do it sooner. They're in the business of knowing who watches what and Facebook is a decent source of that. As another poster here [probably properly] indicated in another thread [paraphrasing] 'the networks are interested in who watches the commercials, not much else.'. Facebook might be a better measure of that than most anything else.

Re:Worthy Endeavor

[gmack]

Well, not so much. Remember when Snakes on a Plane was everywhere on social media? Turns out very few people actually went to watch it. Sometimes things trend on social media because people are making fun of it or telling each other how much they hate it.

Re:

[Rob Lister]

But can they sell that data for more than they paid to gather it? That is what matters.

Re:

[KGIII]

It's time for a Grandpa Story but I'm very, very weak. I have been diagnosed with pneumonia. They also have me on prednizone so it gives me cause to be an asshole. (Like I needed an additional reason.)

Anyways, a long time ago I got to be a Nilsen Family. I'm going to skip the whole middle of this story but, suffice to say, I've not really watched TV since the 1980s. I dutifully put the television on a channel that had nothing but static. I felt I'd done my part.

Really, the story is better than that but I'm

Re:

[KGIII]

I watch no television and mostly only watch online documentaries. Sometimes, I'll go see a movie. Yet, I know a whole bunch of things about shows and movies that I've never seen - just from reading your (generic you) posts. I live vicariously through you.

Re:

[FunkSoulBrother]

Because Television executives are largely old boomers coasting on inertia and they really have no interest in tackling this difficult problem at age 67 in between rounds of golf and trips to Palm Springs.

Give them 5-10 more years and they'll retire or croak and the industry will be in for a shakeup.

OP should have mentioned Twitter

[Vegan Cyclist]

Although mentioned briefly in the article, Twitter is a pretty great indicator of TV interest. Of particular note, what's become quite popular is actors and others involved in programs live-Tweeting during the episodes, and interacting with fans. Jeff Probst has been doing this for several years, and some actors like William Shatner are actually really active as well (live-Tweeting during sci-fi shows.) It's a neat twist on things that really doesn't work on FB or IG.

Re:

[KGIII]

Wait, you read the article?

Re:

[Vegan Cyclist]

I know. Crazy, huh?