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Social TV media on the rise

A Yahoo survey of online Australians has found an increase in the use of social media whilst watching TV.

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2013-02-18_2344_001A Yahoo survey of online Australians has found an increase in the use of social media whilst watching TV.

A Yahoo!7 Social TV Survey polled “thousands of online Australians” in November / December, with almost half connecting with their social circles whilst watching television.

Reality TV remains the most talked about topic of those surveyed.

The survey concluded:
 43% of people surveyed use social media while watching TV
 42% of people surveyed watch a TV show because of a recommendation from a friend via social media (up 16% from 2011)
 Almost a third (38%) of people surveyed have been made aware of a show because of something they saw on social media (up 12% from 2011)
 10% of people surveyed watch TV on a tablet (doubling from 5% in 2011)

Seven’s FANGO is now at 700,000 downloads, up from 500,000 last August.

When compared to last year’s results, reality TV continues to deliver the most talked about programmes through social media. The highest ranking was ratings topper The X-Factor on Seven, with 39% of respondents posting about the TV show on social media.

“Last year’s survey found that Australians have a genuine appetite for the idea of Social TV and connecting with likeminded fans around the shows they love. This year, the survey results highlighted social media’s increasing influence on how Australians discover new TV shows”, said Kristin Carlos, Head of TV, Yahoo!7.

The results also reveal that appointment-based TV remains the viewing option of choice (72% prefer to watch TV shows live as they are airing). While viewers still prefer to watch via the traditional television set, the tablet is emerging as the mobile device of choice for TV program viewing with the number of respondents watching TV programs on a tablet doubling to 10% (up from 5% in 2011).

8 Responses

  1. I really do think TV’s obsession with Twitter and the like is so short sighted – they’re effectively encouraging people to watch TV much more passively, therefore causing people to get less into what they’re watching and then soon to stop watching all together.

    TV (the world over) seems more obsessed with the number of tweets than the number of viewers nowadays – and they need to realise if they don’t meniton Twitter at all or any hashtags etc. during their broadcasts they won’t lose a single viewer. Not twitter users will be glad the annoyance is out of the way, while twitter folk will still talk about it if they want to and find the appropriate hashtag to use without it being spelled out on screen for them.

  2. Fango might have 700k downloads, but how many people are actually actively using it? I’m tipping a very small fraction.

    Same could be said of Zeebox. Many of us have downloaded it, I’ve used it a few times but personally I’m still yet to really see the benefit of it and I’m sure I’m not alone. Twitter is more effective.

  4. It is an online survey conducted last November and December and there were 7741 responses is all that is said in the press release.

    Most likely it was a pop up on the Yahoo!7 website. So the sample is TV viewers who use the website and responded to the survey. They are probably younger and more likely to use social media than the general population.

    If it was a sample of Fango users the numbers are very low and would most likely have been buried.

  5. Thanks David, though I’d be surprised if you do find out much in the way of detail. In many ways I find the whole thing extremely interesting, which is why I get frustrated when the reported results – and that’s not your fault – are so insubstantial!

  6. Without knowing something of the methodology used for this survey, it’s meaningless. Anyone have any pointers to how it was undertaken or structured, what was counteds as “social media”, etc?

    Because a few little hints spread out over various reports suggest it may have been a survey of 7,741 Fango users, or possibly users of all network’s apps. If that’s the case, then the results look a little disappointing – “only 43% of social media app users actually using social media while watching TV” makes a much less impressive headline…

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