A Gaggle of Social TV / Second Screen Reports

The last couple of weeks have seen a number of reports coming out on multiplatform and multidevice diffusion and use.  It's busy time here, so I'm going to combine and highlight -

A study from consumer research group GfK MRI found that 63% of tablet owners report watching TV while they use their tablets in the previous week. And they did so a lot - 41% of total TV viewing time was spent with tablet in hand. The focus on tablet use behaviors is interesting, because most of the studies to date focus on what people are doing while watching TV.
  So what were they doing online while watching TV time?  34% were posting on social media; 25% visited websites or used apps tied to the show they were watching (a show's site or app, the network's site, or a fan site); 21% were looking up information about the show; 16% watched video clips about the program; 11% were voting in a show's content or event; and 9% were actively participating in a live chatroom.  As for the TV advertising, the study found that 28% looked up more information about a product advertised on the program on their tablets - and more importantly, 12% reported that they later purchased that product.
  As for which screen was primary. 36% reported being true multitaskers, with equal focus on TV screen and tablet.  Another 36% indicated that their primary focus was on the tablet, and only 28% said their primary focus was on the TV's bog screen.
  Source -  Multiscren TV-Tablet Viewing Soars,  MediaDailyNews

Research from Forrester suggest that people are watching video in new ways. with multitasking (watching TV while also doing something else) is quickly becoming the new norm.  Forrester found that 74% of US viewers regularly multitask, a significant jump from last year's 58%.  Their report uses this result and the boom in digital video devices and services to argue that traditional audience rating measures are becoming outmoded and incomplete.  Digital captures so much more information about its users, while Nielsen and other ratings services are struggling to develop ways to count the viewing that occurs through the myriad potential second screens.

Forrester says GRPs no longer provide complete coverage for marketers because they only measure age and gender in a world of digital detail, are a backward-looking metric, and face digital video platforms that can already target audiences beyond the basic.

    Source -  Study: In Growing Digital Media World, GRPs Still Important,  MediaDailyNews 

Ericsson ConsumerLab's latest annual TV and Video study concluded that Social TV is rapidly becoming a mainstream, mass-market phenomenon.  The study looks at TV and video trends world-wide, based on thousands of interviews and data from online activities collected from consumers in 14 countries.  The found that 62% of their sample combine social media activities with TV viewing on a weekly basis; up from 44% last year.  Women were slightly more likely to do this than men (66% vs. 58%), and a quarter (25%) of respondents reported engaging in more narrowly defined Social TV activities - using social media to share their thoughts about the program they were watching at the time.
  Other relevant report highlights - two-thirds report using laptops or mobile devices for TV viewing; 60% reported using on-demand services to get programs they wanted to watch each week; and over half the sample want the ability to choose their own video content. The desire to control both the selection of content and the viewing experience (time, location, device, and quality) is reflected in the video characteristics consumers were most willing to pay for - improved technical quality (HD or higher), the ability to control the viewing experience (time-shifting, on-demand), access to recent movies. Interest in paying more for personalized content jumped from about 22% to nearly 30% in the last year.  Despite their interest, consumers reported that a variety of technical and regulatory barriers had limited their TV watching outside the home.
  An Ericsson spokesman concluded,

”As the number of screens and services increase, people are eagerly looking for an easy-to-use, aggregated service that can bring everything together. It should allow consumers to mix on-demand and linear TV including live content, facilitate content discovery, leverage the value of social TV and provide seamless access across devices.”

  Sources -  Social TV becoming a mass-market phenomenon, says Ericsson,  InformationWeek
TV and Video: An analysis of evolving consumer habits, 2012,  Ericsson ConsumerLab report.


Networked Insights has developed an interesting Network Executive's Social TV Survival Guide that identifies the major lifecycle segments of television, and discusses how social media and social TV can help the producers and programmers.

At the very least, they suggest, take advantage of the fact that using social media and social TV tie-ins provides real-time access to a wide array of audience responses, preferences, and behaviors - rather than traditional data collection methods that are highly focused, and can take weeks or months for meaningful results to trickle in.

Industry observer Simon Dumenco of Advertising Age describes social TV this way: “Millions of people are now partaking of the ‘dual-screen’ experience -- watching TV while using a smartphone (or tablet) to share their thoughts about what they’re viewing and to ’check in’ to shows. The result: a massive and rapidly expanding real-time focus group (and promotional force).

   Source -  How social media affects the TV lifecycle,  Lost Remote 



Social TV interactions  have exploded in the last year, according to a white paper by media research firm Trendrr.  They found that that last June set new records for social TV activity, with more than 81 million social interactions generated from 5500 telecasts that they tracked.  That was a 681% increase from June 2011, and a 15% increase from the previous month.  Interestingly, recent growth was fed by social activity tied to cable programs (up 45% from May), while social interactions tied to broadcast network programs fell 18%.  In June, more than two-thirds of social TV activity was related to cable programs.  I'll note that June's not a big month for new broadcast programs or episodes, which are much more likely to generate social interaction than repeats. Broadcasting's share of social TV activity should rebound this fall with the start of the new seasons.
    Source - Social TV interactions skyrocketed 171% this year, Lost Remote

A study from the Online Publishers Association shows tablet adoption and use continues to grow.  The study found 31% of respondents had tablets, and three-quarters of tablet owners reported using them daily.  Tablet use averaged almost 14 hours a week, predominantly in the evening.  Some 85% of their sample of mobile device owners (tablets and smartphones) reported using their devices to multitask while watching TV - averaging 1.6 hours a day (about a third of all TV viewing).  Looking deeper, the study identified a group of "heavy" TV/ Second Screen users, who averaged 3.1 hours of multitasking daily.  Roughly a third of mobile device users were included in this group.  Other interesting TV results - a quarter of tablet owners had bought a movie to watch on their table, and 18% had purchased full-length TV programs.
    Sources  -  Tablet Adoption Explodes, study reveals key usage patterns,  Lost Remote
     A Portrait of Today's Tablet User Wave II, an Online Publishers Association report.