A new Council for Research Excellence study finds one in five people use social media at least once a day revolving around primetime TV.
The study found that 19% of online Americans between the ages of 15 and 54 say they are reached daily on platforms like Facebook and Twitter with primetime TV content, whether they saw something about it or posted something themselves.
Deeper into the study, 16% of primetine TV viewing occasions involve interaction with social; half of these instances feature the viewer engaging on social about a specific show happening in real-time. The CRE study calls this activity “socially connected viewing,” the most prevalent instances occurring with new TV shows and sports programming. For Facebook, the study found 33% of viewers’ TV-watching occasions were “socially connected,” while Twitter’s was 55%.
The study measured over 78,000 mobile-app diary entries provided by nearly 1,700 study participants, looking at close to 1,600 TV shows.
“A key question we sought to address is how social media usage relates to new viewing platforms and behaviors,” said Beth Rockwood, SVP for market resources at Discovery Communications, who chairs the CRE’s Social Media Committee.
“The majority of viewing remains live and on traditional TV sets, but we do see that social media use has a stronger relationship with the newer platforms and behaviors. This is evidence that social media is an important part of the new ways that people are consuming television content.”