Nielsen ratings have been the industry standard measure of tv audiences since the Nielsen Company introduced their proprietary television market research service in 1950. Accordingly, advertisers and networks have used these numbers to gauge the success and failure of programming.
Now, as the technology to pinpoint audience sizes and different kinds of viewer engagement explodes, so has market research – and many new companies offering services each with their own take on what constitutes viewer engagement have begun to dot the industry landscape.
One such notable company is BlueFin Labs, founded in 2008, a product of MIT’s Media Lab. BlueFin measures audience engagement across social media to give a better snapshot of audience response to television shows. A video explaining their model is below, take a look to get a better idea of the big picture surrounding the new approach to understanding television audiences.
With these new investments comes not only an experiment, but a deluge of original scripted and non-scripted programming – and this isn’t only happening online. Throughout 2011 the cable industry saw an upsurge in original programming as channels sought to keep themselves relevant in an era when running re-runs is slowly becoming a less popular practice.
What does this mean for viewers? While it may become trickier to navigate the video and entertainment ecosystem, competition is greater than ever, and this means viewers may end up with more high quality programming that’s relevant to them.
At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Youtube’s Robert Kyncl spoke on the company’s new approach to premium content. The future of premium internet video, a distribution pipeline which Kyncl says will take a 75% share of the total video market by 2020, Read More …
For the musicians of the Vegetable Orchestra, peppers make up horns, hollow pumpkins replace drum sets, and bound celery sticks resemble guitars. In an age when music is defined by its viral prevalence, The Vegetable Orchestra is literally going back to its roots.
The eleven-person orchestra records and performs all of its music by using fresh vegetables as instruments. Read More …
Broadcast television is (finally) coming to a phone near you. MetroPCS, a mobile service provider, has announced that it has partnered with Mobile Content Venture (MCV) to broadcast digital tv to phones equipped with digital tuners. MCV is a joint venture of 12 major US broadcast groups, whose aim since 2010 has been to leverage the power of broadcast tv through cell phone and other digital delivery. Although a number of manufacturers, including mobile phone and pc companies, previously adopted tuners as a part of their products, they have yet to become popularized. Read More …
