Nielsen Adds Age And Gender Demographics To Twitter TV Ratings

Nielsen announced today that it has added age and gender demographic data to its Twitter TV Ratings product, in an effort to drive home the link between social media conversation and television viewing habits.

The demographic information for programming over 250 U.S. television networks will be delivered overnight and give the industry new data about how programs are resonating with the audience and specifically certain audience groups. Available age breakdowns include 13-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-54, 55+ and 18-49.

“The social TV phenomenon offers networks, advertisers and agencies an exciting opportunity to engage with consumers, amplify messaging, and build loyalty,” said Nielsen Social VP of product Deirdre Bannon. “In order to take full advantage of this opportunity, it is critical to understand who is participating in and being reached by the conversation. With demographic data now available for Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings, clients can build campaigns and engagement strategies that consider the audience reached by social TV activity and how that may complement or build on target audiences reached through traditional TV.”

Nielsen’s initial analysis of the demographics has produced some interesting findings about the people who tweet about TV — Twitter TV Authors, in its terminology — and those who read those tweets. Previous Nielsen research showed viewers of TV related tweets outnumber creators of the tweets by a 50-to-1 margin.

Now, Nielsen reports, the audience for tweets about television is more demographically balanced that Twitter TV Authors: “For example, a program where Twitter TV Authors are 80% male may have a Twitter TV Audience that is 60% female. This indicates that Twitter TV can be used as an important tool to reach audiences beyond a program’s core viewership.”

Some other demographic results:

• Twitter TV Authors for the episodes analyzed ranged from 12% male to 92% male.
• The program episode skewing oldest counted 85% of its Twitter TV Authors above the age of 35, while 98% of the Twitter Authors for the youngest-skewing program were below the age of 35.
• On average, the Twitter TV Authors for Sports Events skewed 79% male, while Reality programs skewed 65% female.
• Reality programs also had a younger mix of Twitter TV Authors: 75 percent were below the age of 35. Comparatively, just 63 percent of authors were below 35 for Comedy programs.