TVloop Blog

Okay, maybe “rejoice” is a bit overzealous, but the Addicted to Scrubs Facebook application from the TVLoop network has added over 20,000 new users over the last month.  As of today, there are ~686K total users, almost 80K of which are active in the application every month.  That makes Addicted to Scrubs one of the most popular applications in the TVLoop network.  Not bad for a show that NBC jettisoned earlier this year only to be picked up by ABC as a mid-season replacement.  The TVLoop application is so popular that both ABC and BestBuy recently purchased ads in that application.  The ABC ad was to announce the move from NBC to ABC while the Best Buy ads pitched the release of the Scrubs Season 7 DVD set.  And speaking of ABC, the network just released the new trailer for the Season 8 premiere starring Courtney Cox.  Allison Waldman over at the TV Squad blog wrote a nice post about one hour premiere that is set to run on January 6.  We’ll check in with the application after the premiere airs to see what sort of impact we see on the numbers.

According to a post by Sam Diaz over at ZDNet, Cyber Monday 2008 has been significantly better from a traffic standpoint than a year ago.  Here’s a direct quote from the post:

“Traffic to online retail sites today - Cyber Monday - far exceeded last year’s Cyber Monday traffic. This year, the traffic peaked around 3 p.m. ET, with 6.7 million global visitors per minute - a 46 percent jump over the peak of 4.6 million on Cyber Monday last year. Today’s peak traffic also exceeded Black Friday’s peak of 5.9 million and Sunday’s 6.5 million.”

And according to the LA Times, Black Friday sales results were also up over last year.  The good news coming out of the retail and ecommerce segments are not only good news for the US economy, but it’s fantastic new for us here at Watercooler as well.  Why?  Well today we’re excited to announce a new partnership with Delivery Agent, the parent company behind the SeenOn! website and ecommerce features at NBC, ABC, and others networks and websites.  SeenOn! allows TV fans to purchase branded merchandise and apparel from hundreds of their favorite TV shows.  The TVLoop/SeenOn! partnership adds that ability to over 100 of the most popular TVLoop fan community applications on Facebook.  So not only can fans purchase their favorite branded gear from Lost such as t-shirts, mugs, etc., they can also purchase the pants they saw LC wearing on the latest episode of The Hills.

It’s a perfect partnership and one that should be very interesting to follow over the next several months.  Not only is the additional revenue stream nice for Watercooler, but the addition of ecommerce capabilities provides TVLoop with the ability to gain additional knowledge about the following online behavior of TV fans:

1. Hot shows - i.e. which shows fans are adding via Facebook at a rapid pace
2. Watercooler shows - which shows fans are talking about online
3. Online viewership - which shows fans are watching online via TVLoop apps
4. Purchasing behavior - which shows can sell merchandise

We’ll continue to report on stats and usage over the next several months to see how fans embrace the new shopping feature.

MG Siegler had an interesting post over at Venture Beat a few days ago about the price of 24: Redemption on iTunes.  I agree that a $19.99 price point is a bit steap for a TV show that any US consumer can get for free at Hulu…or better yet, in the Addicted to 24 TVLoop community (yep, we have it too).  But for hardcore international viewers that can’t get enough of Jack Bauer, maybe the iTunes price point is right on the mark.  Regardless, the post made me curious about the impact of the made for TV movie on the TVLoop community.  How did 24: Redemption impact Addicted to 24?  The graph below shows that daily active users (DAUs) are up significantly since the episode aired on Sunday, Nov 23.  Is that a direct result of the made for TV movie?  Probably, but users had some help as we sent an email following the airing of the episode to make sure Addicted to 24 users knew they could find the full video in the TVLoop application.  The key here is that special events for TV shows like 24: Redemption are perfect opportunities to re-engage fans of a show tha that has been off-air for several months.  The result has been a steady of influx if existing users, but we’ve also added ~4000 new users in the last few weeks.  Clearly 24 is one of those shows that has a large, passionate following and fans are anxious to get their hands on any new content from Jack Bauer.

I just saw a post over at The Live Feed, a blog by Hollywood Reporter’s James Hibberd, about CBS declaring victory in the November sweeps.  So that got me to thinking about how the Big Four networks perform when it comes to the TVLoop fan communities.  I have to say that I’m a bit shocked by the results.  While CBS may be able to claim victory in the sweeps, FOX is king for TVLoop applications.  In fact, with 20% of the 16 million TVLoop users, FOX has 5x as many users as the CBS shows which is a distant fourth behind second place ABC at 16% of users and third place NBC at 8%.  In fact, CBS shows are even behind the CW which came in at 8%.

So what does all of this mean?  Well obviously CW doesn’t have twice as many viewers than CBS when it comes to broadcast television.  However the shows on the CW led by Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, and America’s Next Top Model have a very passionate online following that can never seem to get enough of Chuck Bass, the kids from Tree Hill, and Tyra Banks that goes well beyond what CBS has to offer (CSI, How I Met Your Mother, and Two and a Half Men).  The same can be said of ABC with Lost and Grey’s Anatomy and FOX with The Simpsons and Family Guy.  The net of it is that while CBS dominates the ratings yet again, they have some catching up to do when it comes to generating buzz and viewer engagement online.

We’re still two month to the day away from the Season 5 premiere of Lost on January 21, 2009, and ABC provided a little teaser of what we can expect from Jack, Kate, and the gang during last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy.  TVWeek has all of the details here including the three minute music video from The Fray the formed the basis for the preview.

Lost is a huge part of the TVLoop community with over half a million application users.  But more than that, the application is consistently on the Movers and Shakers list which includes the fastest growing applications each week/month.  In the last two weeks, Lost has added almost 5,000 new users which is pretty good for a show that isn’t even on the air.  That speaks volumes about passion Lost viewers bring to the show and should only be a precursor for what we’ll see when the show is back on the air in January.