Now that November has arrived, there’s a big void on TV as a result of the unfortunate NBA lockout. Games are cancelled at least through the end of the month. The most action the NBA is currently getting on TV, besides SportsCenter updates on the lockout, is Kris Humphries sudden divorce from uber-celeb Kim Kardashian, which is already being memeified on the social web. In an attempt to understand how the NBA lives on TV and through conversations about TV online, we took a look at some of the reality TV shows NBA players have popped up in.
Bluefin Labs, one of the main social TV data companies, pulled data for us around a few shows that have been on-air in October. The company recently updated their Bluefin Signals analytics tool to include “Audience Profile Layer and On-Demand Audience Profile Creation,” and provide, “clients the ability to analyze the television preferences of specific audience segments.” Their clients include A+E Networks, AMC Networks, CBS, Comcast Spotlight, Pepsi and TBS, to name a few.
We looked at Bluefin data for the following shows:
- La La’s Full Court Life (VH1) The New York Knicks’ Carmelo Anthony is married to host La La Vasquez. The show has aired over 48 times in October.
- Basketball Wives (VH1) – This show stars: Kimsha Artest (wife of LA Laker Ron Artest), Jackie Christie (wife of former LA Laker Doug Christie), Imani Showalter (ex-financee of Charlotte Bobcat Stephen Jackson), and others. The show aired more than 15 times in October
- Keeping Up With The Kardashians (E!) – Khloe Kardashian is married to LA Laker Lamar Odom Kim Kardashian was married to NBA Free Agent Kris Humphries. The show aired over 112 times in October
- Khloe and Lamar (E!) – the spinoff, which aired 8 episodes on October 8th
Here are some trends that summarized findings about the audiences for these shows:
- The male/female ratio for three of the shows are identical. This is sheer coincidence.
- Not surprisingly the majority of commenters are female.
- Sentiment of comments for Basketball Wives LA (reactions to the narrative, not feelings about the show itself) was a lot more negative than for the other shows.
- There are a lot of catty comments about the shows, especially Basketball Wives.
“Conversation Gists” (the top 50 words or terms used in social media when talking about a particular show) are a great way to get a sense of the viewer conversation around the show. The first for La La and the second for Basketball Wives:
Retired NBA star Shaquille O’Neal has been known for attaching himself to social media startups and even his ex-wife Shaunie and Basketball Wives star and Executive Producer appreciates the social web. “Social media provides us the amazing ability to chat directly with the show’s fans. In many ways, it feels like we are sitting in their living rooms and watching the show with them,” she told Lost Remote.
Basketball Wives added “10,000 new followers each week,” according to Kristin Frank GM of MTV & VH1 Digital and Dan Sacher, VP of VH1 Digital. Additionally, the show averaged 25,000 likes per day and received over 300,000 comments across their content. Frank and Sacher added that for Basketball Wives there were big efforts with the cast, “making sure they understand what hashtags are,” and more. Their second screen app “Co-Star,” (screen grab on the right) also aggregated what cast members were tweeting and commenting on the show.
The NBA is currently living on TV through dramatic reality-series. While might seem ridiculous at times, they’re certainly keeping players from the NBA in the light when they have no games to play in. The question remains: if die-hard basketball fans, male and female alike, will tune-into the reality shows, or find another sport to watch.