As we know from updating our social TV leaderboard here on Lost Remote, some TV shows have grown massive Facebook audiences. At the TV of Tomorrow conference today, Facebook’s Justin Osofsky put it into perspective: 275 million Facebook users have liked TV shows 1.65 billion times.
Here are the top five TV show Facebook pages on our leaderboard:
| 1. | Family Guy (FOX) | 30,234,246 fans |
| 2. | South Park (CC) | 26,747,951 fans |
| 3. | The Simpsons (FOX) | 26,368,528 fans |
| 4. | Spongebob (Nick) | 21,637,693 fans |
| 5. | House (FOX) | 21,311,499 fans |
Apparently, animated shows have an edge on Facebook, but the message is clear: Facebook is a huge distribution and promotional platform for TV shows — if producers put in the effort to engage the community. Facebook’s recent move to allow content owners to charge for online rentals — using Facebook credits — only amplifies the message.
The more Facebook users like TV shows, the better it positions Facebook to enable the next-generation program guide. After all, a like is a recommendation, and many TV shows today are discovered via social recommendations and word-of-mouth. “Social Program Guides” like Clicker (below) are tapping the Facebook social graph — tied to TV schedules — to recommend what to watch. As time goes on, these guides will span the web, mobile devices, tablets, set tops and TV sets.
At some point soon, a critical mass of people will like and tweet about TV shows, and social guides will hit a tipping point. Facebook will power recommendations, and Twitter will power trends. Netflix, Hulu and Xbox’s start screens will be transformed into smart, social recommendations. Traditional TV guides will disappear forever, and suddenly getting traction on Facebook and Twitter will determine whether a show is highlighted on the “home page” experience of any given social guide. Suddenly, ROI is very tangible.
All this is great news for Facebook and Twitter, which were recently called “power brokers for the global television industry.” Stay tuned…