TVloop Blog

The 81st Academy Awards will be held on Sunday, Feb. 22, and we have a sneak preview of the winners.  Well that might be a stretch, but we have the winners according to a recent poll of the TVLoop community.  So without further adieu, let’s take a look.

The nominees for Best Actress are:

Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married

Angelina Jolie - Changeling

Melissa Leo - Frozen River

Meryl Streep - Doubt

Kate Winslet - The Reader

And the Oscar goes to: Kate Winslet for The Reader with 42% of the vote.

The nominees for Best Actor are:

• Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
• Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
• Sean Penn - Milk
• Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler

And the Oscar goes to: Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with 49% of the vote.

The nominees for Best Picture are:

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Frost/Nixon
• Milk
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire

And the Oscar goes to: Slumdog Millionaire with 38% of the vote

So what do you think? The TVLoop community get it right? Check back on Monday to see how we did.

This shouldn’t come as a great surprise to those of us that spend our personal and work lives online, but TVWeek is reporting that increased exposure equals increased engagement.  The article is the result of a study MTV conducted in conjunction with Harris Poll to determine if interacting with content/programming on multiple screens (TV, PC, mobile, etc) increases the engagement with that content.

My first thought when I read the article was “Yeah, no kidding”.  Being in social media, I guess the concept of driving engagement by facilitating interaction comes second nature.  But then I realized that this could make my job, and the job of our sales team much easier.  A major broadcast content provider has seen the light, and is admitting that to be successful they need to deliver their content where their users want it, not necessarily where they want to provide it.  Cue the hallelujahs and angels descending from on high.  The impact of this study could be significant across the broadcasting landscape. It means the TV guys may finally be getting it.

Here are some key points from the TVWeek article:

—The more involved a viewer is with the content, the more effective the advertising is for that viewer.

—The more involved the viewer, the more cross-platform activity they engage in, and therefore crossing platforms with an advertising campaign increases the likelihood of targeting the most involved viewers.

—The pattern is repeated across virtually every program measured, which in this study encompassed about two dozen television shows.

MTV breaks die-hard fans into two categories: seekers and generators.  Seekers are fans of shows and content that actively seek additional avenues to engage with that content across multiple platforms.  Most of the 17 million users of TVLoop applications on Facebook are probably be seekers since they actively sought out an avenue to express their affinity and consumer content.  Generators are the really hard-core fans that not only consume content, but create it as well. These are the top 1% of the population and drive much of the behavior of the seekers.

The net result is that the more a viewer consumes and creates content, the stronger their affinity for that particular program or content.  That means that as brands weave themselves into the fabric of the user experience, they can ride the coattails of that affinity to drive engagement with their particular brand or product.  Increased engagement thereby drives increased message retention and so on and so forth.

That’s exactly what we do for a living every day here at TVLoop.  We enable brands to connect with TV fans in new and engaging ways.  Not only that, but this study suggests that the more consumers are exposed to the same brand message when viewing content across multiple platforms, but the more they will retain that message.  Attention all consumer brands that advertise on broadcast TV - our sales team can be reached at sales@watercooler-inc.com.  We look forward to hearing from you.

I don’t have much commentary for the TVLoop Movers and Shakers this week as the list is identical to last week.  The top 10 for the week ending February 14 are:

The L Word continues its dominance within the TVLoop community which is increasingly odd given its absence across the rest of social media and online buzz metrics.  For comparison purposes, here’s the most recent list of top buzz-getters as well as the top shows on Twitter.

There are some other interesting things to point out from the Movers and Shakers list this week.  As background, I should point out that I only report on the shows that are currently on the air with new episodes.  We have over 200 TV communities, and some of the most active ones are those that are in syndication (Friends, Sex and the City, etc.).  However I think only those on the air are relevant to our purpose of showing what TV shows people are talking about.

That said, there was one new entry to the top of the list that is quite surprising.  MASH, which has been off the air for over 20 years, checked in at the #5 spot with over 5,000 new users - for a 15% increase in population in one week.  That appears to be driven by one fan chain called Nurses are Hot - Pass it On which has been passed on by almost 32,000 MASH fans.  Just shows that you never know what kind of spark is going to ignite a community and drive growth.

One of the more imprortant and contentious topics within the television industry these days is the Federal mandate for TV stations to disable their analog tranmissions for a couple of reasons according to the FCC’s The Digital TV Transition website:

1. Moving off analog signals frees up the broadcast spectrum for public services such as police and fire, while also paving the way for enhanced wireless services

2. Digital TV provides a better and more stable TV-viewing experience for consumers

The transition was originally supposed to be on February 17, but Congress recently voted to delay the mandate until June due to the potential negative impact on lower income households.  President Obama signed that extension last week.

The delay has caused quite a bit of consternation among TV stations that have been preparing for the better part of two years for the switch - including months of awareness campaigns run across local TV stations.  There are also government-issued vouchers to offset the cost of the necessary converter box for those consumers choosing to keep their rabbit ears.  Despite the delay, many stations are attempting to proceed with the transition as originally planned.  The FCC has already rejected 25% of those applications.

To get a sense of what our TV audience thinks about the delay in the transition, we took a poll of the TVLoop community for Lost, Scrubs, Grey’s Anatomy, The Simpsons, and The Office.  The results are below:

Overall, TVLoop users don’t think that the date should have changed (~46%) with 27% saying that there should not be a switch at all.  Interestingly, over 15% don’t even know what the transition is.  And from an individual show perspective, it appears as if The Office fans are more knowledgeable about the digital TV issue with 54% saying that it should not have been moved.

I’m not really a big fan of Valentine’s Day for all of the very well-documented reasons that a lot of men aren’t big fans of February 14.  It’s a bit contrived and besides, I’m not in the business of supporting Hallmark and various chocolate and candy companies.  Nevertheless, we thought it would be fun to use this made-up holiday to find out which couples are most popular within the TVLoop communities.

The results are in, and the winners are:

Best Couple of Fall 2008 - Meredith and Derek (Grey’s Anatomy)

Best Couple of Winter 2009 - Jon and Kate (Jon & Kate Plus Eight)

Worst Couple of the 2009 Season - Serena and Dan (Gossip Girl)

High Hopes Couple of the 2009 Season - Blair and Chuck (Gossip Girl)

Most Epic TV Couple of All Time - Rachel and Ross (Friends)

Obviously our younger demographic had a lot to say about these results as Archie & Edith Bunker and Ricky & Lucy Ricardo only recieved 2% and 9% of the vote respectively.  Come on people, there was television before 1995 you know.