ISSN 2348-1218 (print) International Journal of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovations ISSN 2348-1226 (online) Vol. 8, Issue 1, pp: (116-121), Month: January - March 2020, Available at: www.researchpublish.com
SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS AND THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE OF TELEVISION Noah Kim Portola
Abstract: Beyond traditional television broadcast media, people rely on multiple streaming services and social media platforms for entertainment today. Television, as we know it, will continue to experience a drastic shift, not only impacting the way audiences enjoy television programs but also the way television companies determine ratings. In an increasingly social media dependent society, audiences have become more and more fragmented, watching programs on multiple platforms. The current review of literature about social media analytics of television programs has revealed that traditional ratings are not sufficient in gauging audience engagement, and instead, large data sets offered through social media platforms include audience dialogue and interactions as well. To add, social media engagement can impact the ratings of the shows themselves and depending on the content of social media conversations, can lead to negative outcomes such as the cancellation of TV programs. This research aims to understand the specific role social media analytics and big data have played not only in advertising TV programs, but also the way in which entertainment itself has been diversified and recategorized for today’s new market. Keywords: Subscription video on-demand, Social media analytics, Television, Nielsen ratings, Audience engagement.
I. INTRODUCTION As of 2018, Netflix and Amazon have a total of 180 million subscribers combined. Subscription video on-demand (SVOD) services like Netflix and Amazon have created a culture of binge-viewing shows where audiences can watch entire seasons of their favorite television series. There are now an absurd amount of viewing options such as traditional broadcast and cable systems as well as digital video recorders and streaming platforms. This proliferation in platforms has disrupted the television industry as a whole and with this emergence of multiple platforms, social media analytics used a form of “web scraping” in which conversations posted on a wide range of social media platforms are aggregated and classified via sophisticated algorithms. Traditional Nielsen ratings are only able to measure audience exposure, are thus outdated as social TV analytics are proving itself as more adequate and superior to traditional methods. Traditional ratings are based on small numbers of users, and social TV analytics is based off of big data. Social TV analytics are used to assess audience behavior, measure TV program success, and impact the allocation of advertising dollars across programs. Although it is unlikely that social media TV analytics will completely replace traditional ways of collecting data about shows, social media is being embraced by stakeholders for its beneficial uses in advertising and more. CBS and SyFy now use Twitter activity to determine whether or not to cancel or continue a show. The CW network has been noted to cancel a show with a higher Nielsen traditional rating than a different show which had more social media content and engagement.
II. SUBSCRIPTION VIDEO ON-DEMAND Currently, there are multiple SVOD services. Some act as a gateway to a traditional channel, sorting upcoming content as it comes out. Others such as Netflix and Amazon function as a general portal where content is not specified and tailored to a specific audience. Instead, these companies allow for viewers to freely search for shows and movies that are geared to their own personal preferences. SVODs merge audience engagement and technological progress to create „quality TV‟. Users are able to binge watch shows on SVOD, deviating away from „television‟s liveness and linear scheduling‟. The popularity of SVODs such as Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix, began a trend in audiences to switch from traditional cable subscriptions to online streaming services.1 Learning how each service can provide further insights into SVODs.
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