Social TV and Film

A mélange of TV resource apps are getting together to help each other, and their users. Dijit, Thuuz, Tomorrowish, IVA and Simple.TV are partnering to integrate their products and services. The theory seems to be that they are stronger working together, rather than alone. Given the non-competitive positioning of each, this could be a boon for TV viewers. First a quick summary of what each of the companies does. Dijit’s NextGuide helps TV viewers discover new TV shows and remember to watch them. Thuuz provides real-time sports updates helping fans tune to the most interesting game on TV at any given time. Tomorrowish let’s viewers watching a show or event on-demand replay the social media buzz from the first broadcast. Internet Video Archive (IVA) specializes in providing show and movie trailers. Simple.TV provides live TV and network DVR services.

Seevibes created its own “Seevibes Score” — a composite score that consolidates data on market share, social impressions, loyalty levels, engagement rate, frequency, and level of response — to gauge how a show is performing socially. “The level of audience engagement with TV via social networks with television has surged by 500% year-after-year. This can make it difficult to compare broadcast numbers over time,” explains Maisonnave

“These social data points are giving us a new barometer for success or failure when we’re talking about engaging TV audiences,” says Youngling. “Content, both programmatic and advertorial, is now subject to an entirely new set of consumer-driven metrics. We talked about must-see TV back in the Seinfeld days, and now it’s evolving into the idea of must-comment TV.”

“Twitter didn’t have to train or persuade people to change their behavior,” says Bugbee of the network’s television chatter. “It just had to capitalize on what people were already doing. I think that’s why Twitter’s so powerful: it’s easy, it’s obvious, and it’s open.”

The service analyzes over 3,000 TV shows across “100%” of broadcasters and cable TV networks in Canada, recording 20 million relevant social media interactions each week. The idea is that clients – which currently include Quebecor Media, CBC, and Bell Media – can analyze posts and tweets, both for their own shows and channels, but also the industry over all, and adjust their social media strategy accordingly.

TvTweet, founded in Bordeaux, France in 2011, has found similar success in the European market, and is working with companies such as Orange, TF1 and NRJ12 across seven different countries.

ost people currently prefer to watch “must-see TV” at the time of broadcast, the signs are that this will soon change.

But there are strong pointers to a not-too-distant future where time-shifting is the default behaviour for most viewers, most of the time, and live viewing is mainly reserved for event TV.

On-demand is seen more as a catch-up facility, with 70 per cent of on-demand users claiming they only use on-demand services to catch up on programmes they have missed. In addition, the availability of on-demand services on other screens is key to many, with 47 per cent of on-demand users stating that they often use on-demand services to watch programmes when they are not in front of a TV set.

To its 200 million-plus active users, Twitter is many things: a social network, a short-form messaging service, a news wire, a tool for self-expression — even, some believe, a force for global political change. But the company itself seems far more keen to position itself among its users — and even better, potential users – as a TV companion, an indispensable tool to keep up with, discuss and even influence the outcomes of shows and live events like sporting contests and political debates.

This “second screen experience” turns TV into a participatory activity, allowing Twitter users to broadcast wisecracks, critiques and theories in real-time; the networks, in turn, share the behind-the-scenes worlds of writers’ rooms and dressing rooms, 140 characters at a time.

So what’s to become of the dozens of startups that came out of the second-screen craze? “There’s definitely going to be a lot of consolidation that happens,” said Jesse Redniss,

According to i.TV, GetGlue will remain a separate product while letting it benefit from i.TV’s “broader platform of partners and services.” Provo, Utah-based i.TV claims 15 million people use its TV app every month. ”Together, i.TV and GetGlue will reshape the social TV and second screen landscape,” i.TV CEO Brad Pelo said in announcing the deal.

In a fight for survival, ConnecTV has pivoted its strategy. Last week the startup, whose investors include 10 broadcast station groups, released an overhaul of its app refocused on a simple idea: It lets users “clip” six-second video segments from among 400 live TV channels and share them on Twitter and Facebook, via a link in email or within the app.

TV ad spending growth continues to exceed the ad industry average, at least according to Kantar Media figures.

TV advertising has for now been able to withstand the digital onslaught that has contributed to plummeting print spend. (An analysis of TV versus online video consumption can be found here.)

TV currently remains easily the largest advertising medium in the US. (No huge surprises there.) Last year, PwC estimated that advertisers spent $63.8 billion on TV, about 75% more than they did on online ads and more than they did on all other traditional media combined.

The Walt Disney Co. last week unveiled perhaps the most radical tablet-related development, saying that its new Disney Junior series, Sheriff Callie’s Wild West, will stream to tablets before it ever hits the linear feed.

Thus far, the initial viewer-pattern data has been encouraging. “In the past year and a half, we’ve seen video viewing just skyrocket across mobile,” said Beau Teague, Cartoon Network’s senior director of user experience. “Our mobile viewing has surpassed even viewing on the desktop site.”

Some of that has to do with the weirdly obsessive way in which younger children (say, ages 2-8) tend to sample on-demand content. “We definitely see a lot of repeat viewing,” Teague said. “Kids will return to favorite episodes and favorite clips. They’ll seek out whatever the catchphrase was from last night’s episode of Adventure Time.”

Netflix is banking on getting on cable set-top boxes to hit aggressive growth targets in the next few years — but not every U.S. operator is eager to play ball with a company they view as a rival.

John Malone, whose Liberty Media owns a stake in Charter, has dismissed the notion that MSOs should pair up Netflix. At the company’s annual investor day this month, he said cable operators should team up to create a Netflix-like subscription VOD service, criticizing the industry for being slow to respond to over-the-top competitors.

Longer term, Netflix projects that it can be two or three times larger than HBO’s current linear base — with 60 million to 90 million subs in the U.S. Hitting those numbers would likely require pay TV deals, to reach consumers who don’t want a separate box for streaming Internet video.

The gist: Later this fall, Twitter users will start to see a “See It” button on messages about some of Comcast-owned NBCUniversal’s shows, like “The Voice.” Clicking on those Tweets will open up a Twitter “card” with more information about the shows, and Twitter users who are also Comcast pay-TV subscribers will be able to record or watch the show directly from their computer or mobile device.

“We want to make the conversation on Twitter lead to consumption,” said Sam Schwartz, Comcast’s chief business development officer.

The deal also includes an “Amplify” advertising deal with Twitter, where Twitter and NBCUniversal will both sell ads against short video clips from the programmers’ shows.

Facebook has gone to war against TV, claiming it has a bigger audience and better measurement. It's hoping to eventually transfer the hundreds of millions of dollars currently being wasted on non-measurable TV commercials and funnel them into Facebook ads

More recently, Facebook has moderated its stance — perhaps because it saw how cozy Twitter was becoming in TVLand?