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Insightful piece by BTIG Research’s Rich Greenfield on the BTIG blog (free / registration required) discussing the value of the new emerging social TV behavior and how TV advertisers should start to consider engagement as a factor in buying decisions.

The Trendrr.TV Social TV Charts provide new insights into the activity of the engaged audience, a metric which we believe is a great compliment to the currently ad buying process.

Excerpts from the original post below.  Visit BTIGresearch.com  for the full post: Does Twitter Illustrate That TV Ad Dollars are Spent All Wrong? Should Engagement Trump Viewership?

While the process of buying TV advertising has become increasingly complex over the past few decades, as brands have far more channels to advertise on, the key driver of decision-making remains total viewers within specific demographics. But what about engagement with the content, which is a key focus in the world of Internet advertising, but rarely thought about in the context of television?  Trendrr.tv has broken out a new TV chart .   If consumers take the time to tweet about a show, presumably they are more engaged with the programming and are helping to drive a broader conversation around the show, its content and its advertising (creating “water cooler” conversation that goes well beyond friends and colleagues).  Maybe advertisers should be more focused on “social media engaged” viewers rather than total viewers within a target demo?

Trendrr vs. Nielsen: The Trendrr.tv results shown below, relative to what you are accustomed to seeing in Nielsen’s weekly TV charts (click here for broadcast and click here for cable), are pretty shocking, especially when it comes to cable network programming.   Note: Trendrr.tv charts exclude sports and special event programming, but do incorporate pay TV channels such as HBO, which do not sell advertising.  In addition, Trendrr’s charts are for a week ending Tuesday, whereas Nielsen is for the week ending Sunday.

• In broadcast television, while the top three series on Trendrr are what you would expect in Idol, Glee and Dancing with the Stars, seeing Glee at #1 is surprising given how much lower its ratings are than American Idol.   It is also surprising to see programming such as Modern Family not show up in the top 10 in Trendrr, despite strong A18-49 ratings.  Several of the younger skewing shows such as Gossip Girl and Vampire Diaries rise into the top 10 on Trendrr, while shows such as Hawaii Five-O and the Office are nowhere to be found.
• In cable television, the top show on Trendrr is a show we had honestly never heard of, BBC’s Dr. Who, with History Channel’s Pawn Stars, which dominates the Nielsen charts, nowhere to be found.  Even more surprising is CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight showing up as #2 (investors view CNN as a fading star relative to its competition), with nothing from the Fox News Channel reaching the top 10.   As shown in the upper right hand corner picture, Piers Morgan actively promotes tweeting on every show.  The one caveat to the cable chart is that major MTV shows (Jersey Shore and Teen Mom) and younger skewing pay TV shows such as HBO’s True Blood are all on hiatus, which we would expect to have a very strong presence on both the total viewer and social media charts when they return.

Visit the Trendrr.TV Social TV Charts at:  Trendrr.TV Charts updated with every morning for the Daily chart and every week on Wednesday for the Weekly view.