Unless you’re hypersensitive about spoilers, live-tweeting political debates and Lindsay Lohan TV movies is one of the best things about Twitter—and the U.K. is catching on.
Around 60 percent of Twitter users in the country are active while watching television, and approximately 40 percent of Twitter traffic during primetime viewing hours relates to the box.
Twitter’s U.K. sales director, Bruce Daisley, suggested that Twitter can help boost a show’s ratings and halt audience attrition. Speaking at a Twitter event in London Thursday, he pointed out that Dynamo saw its audience go up by 50 percent over the season.
“Twitter and TV have become extraordinary partners over the past 12 months—Twitter loves TV and TV loves Twitter,” Daisley said, according to MediaWeek.
Andy Littledale, managing director of SecondSync, the company that provided Daisley’s stats, said that while people are talking about TV across a number of social networks, it’s far easier to track what’s being said on Twitter than on Facebook.
Daisley was keen to point out that Twitter is a “layer” that runs parallel to TV, with which it has a “phenomenal” relationship, and that Twitter is pushing TV viewing and discovery in a “virtuous circle.” In other words, tweeters might see a chatter about a show among people they follow and decide to tune in, on learn about a show through Twitter’s ad products and tweet about it later.
Twitter’s certainly helpful in creating buzz around shows, but it’s impossible to know for sure exactly how those tweets turn into ratings.
Photo via @twittertv/Twitter
