TVGuide.com’s Christy Tanner released a new survey at the TVnext Summit today which looks at the age-old question, does social media drive ratings? According to a survey of TVGuide.com users, it does: 17 percent of respondents say they have started to watch a show and 31 percent say they have continued to watch a show because of a social impression. And 71% of TVGuide.com’s respondents say they’ve seen social messages about TV shows.
While those numbers may not be entirely surprising, this metric is interesting: a full 27% of respondents say they watch more live TV to “to avoid plot and reality spoilers that may be revealed in real time on social networks.” That’s up from 20% two years ago. Twitter has said it’s helping bring back the “shared experience” of watching TV, which is true both because people want to participate and perhaps even more true for people who want to avoid spoilers in their streams. (For more, see our earlier story, “When Twitter impacts TV ratings the most.”)
Tanner’s full presentation digs into the reasons why people were influenced by social media to start watching a new show or to continue watching an existing a show. Well worth the look: