Last year, season one of Orphan Black (BBC’s sci-fi fueled drama where Tatiana Maslany plays most of the characters) took the social TV world by surprise becoming one of the most talked about shows of the year. In its offseason, the show continued to grow it’s fan base and was even a finalist for #TVShow for the Shorty Awards (the ceremony I produce), honoring the best on social media. The show recently premiered its second season and is already making a big social media splash.
The shows fans live and breathe social and to fuel the fandom BBC America has built some impressive channels. They live GIF episodes on Tumblr and released sneak peaks of the new season before it launched on Instagram. The investment in social TV is paying off. After the premiere BBC America released the following stats:
On Saturday, the series reached a new high on Twitter, reaching 1.2 million unique users with over 43,000 tweets about the show. This is up +185% from the previous best (season one finale) and nearly six times greater than the series premiere. The premiere episode alone generated nearly 36,000 tweets, beating several high profile premieres this season including: Fargo, Homeland, True Detective, Vikings, The Americans, Turn and Arrow. On Tumblr, in the month leading up to the premiere there were 1.8 million notes on posts about Orphan Black, including 277,000 on Saturday.
The ratings were a success as well:
The premiere, which aired on Saturday April 19, had already recorded its highest-ever A18-49 delivery in Live+SD (391K), and increased 91% in Live+3 to 746,000. Orphan Black is second only to the channel’s highest rated series, Doctor Who, in A18-49. The Live+3 lift from Live+SD for the Orphan Black season two premiere ranks #1 among all TV drama season premieres thus far in the 2013/14 TV season.
Supernatural Saturdays continue to thrive and become a big night for social TV. If you haven’t already checked out this show, even if you’re not a sci-fi fan, make sure you do.