Music awards shows and reality TV competitions have driven some of the biggest moments of Twitter engagement by television viewers, accoridngto new research.
The results, taken from the first 12 months of the Kantar Twitter TV Ratings, show that a combination of music and a dose of healthy competition proved to be a powerful mix for the UK’s Twitter users.
The Brit Awards 2015 was the broadcast that resulted in the greatest number of Tweets, with viewers posting more than 2 million Tweets about the programme to a Unique Audience of 3,318,281, with Madonna’s fall off stage triggering a peak in activity on the platform.
Other musical events, including the Eurovision Song Contest, which inspired more than 1.6 million Tweets, and The X Factor, which was the series that drove most Twitter activity overall, in addition to political debates such as the ITV Leaders Debate and the BBC Election Debate, got viewers Tweeting in their hundreds of thousands – or even millions.
Sports events also accounted for a large proportion of Twitter engagement, with the FA Cup Quarter Final match between Manchester United and Arsenal topping the list of most Tweeted about sports programmes.
Andy Brown, CEO, Kantar Media, commented: “In the year since we launched the Kantar Twitter TV Ratings there were over 5 million individuals Tweeting about TV programmes. This equates to roughly a third of the UK’s active Twitter users, not to mention a sizable segment of the country’s consumers, and demonstrates that there’s huge value in brands and broadcasters understanding the relationship between television programmes and social media.”
Data is based on the Kantar Twitter TV Ratings tool, which was launched last year as the official metric for understanding, analysing and benchmarking the impact of Twitter on TV viewing habits.
Kantar Media also recently launched a Brand Affinity module within the Ratings dashboard, which allows brands to capitalise on correlations between the TV shows that individuals mention on Twitter, and the specific brands or categories they engage with on the platform.
Brown continued: “Brands are realising that if they don’t track the social reaction to a television programme or campaign, they are missing a significant part of the conversation that audiences are having about them. The Kantar Twitter TV Ratings form part of a holistic approach to measurement that we are seeing an increasing number of broadcasters, agencies and marketers take advantage of.”
Top 20 individual broadcasts
1. The Brit Awards 2015 – ITV, 2012955 Tweets
2. Eurovision Song Contest 2015 – BBC One, 1625819 Tweets
3. The ITV Leaders’ Debate 2015 – ITV, 1590680 Tweets
4. 2014 MTV EMAs – Channel 5, 937075 Tweets
5. I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here (Series 14, Episode 1) – ITV, 649723 Tweets
6. The X Factor (Series 11, Episode 24) – ITV, 619285 Tweets
7. BBC Election Debate 2015 – BBC One, 616287 Tweets
8. Cameron and Milliband: The Battle for Number 10 – Channel 4, 526826 Tweets
9. Eastenders – BBC One, 519359 Tweets
10. Eastenders – BBC One, 499424 Tweets
11. Celebrity Big Brother (Series 15, Episode 1) – Channel 5, 419351 Tweets
12. Glastonbury 2015 (Day 2) – BBC Two/BBC Three/BBC Four/BBC Red Button, 415266 Tweets
13. Britain’s Got Talent (Series 9, final episode) – ITV, 371877 Tweets
14. The Question Time Election Leaders Special – BBC One, 356354 Tweets
15. Children in Need 2014 – BBC One, 348676 Tweets
16. The X Factor (Series 11, Episode 24) – ITV, 323754 Tweets
17. The X Factor (Series 11, Episode 16) – ITV, 319289 Tweets
18. The X Factor (Series 11, Episode 19) – ITV , 290645 Tweets
19. The Budget 2015 – BBC Two, 280709 Tweets
20. I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here! (Series 14, Episode 14) – ITV, 268906 Tweets