Twitter and TV

The "water cooler effect" is the idea of a subject, in this case a particular TV show, becoming a popular topic of conversation. It used to be a great thing if your television program had become the topic of conversation while office workers filled up their custom water bottles at the cooler. After all, no publicity is bad publicity, right?

A recent article by Kate Bulkley featured on the Guardian's Web site explains that this may no longer be the case. According to Bulkley, a show that is trending on Twitter may be doing really well, but it may also be doing quite poorly. "Producers watch Twitter as their shows are going out with some trepidation," said Simon Nelson as quoted in Bulkley's article. Nelson, a media advisor, continued, "The influence of the twittersphere can disproportionately impact on a show, so if there is a torrent of abuse, or the other way around, a torrent of love, that shines a spotlight that is definitely a factor in commissioning meetings." This means, according to Bulkley, that if there is enough negative feedback floating around on Twitter, the shows' producers may take that feedback quite seriously.

However, there is not necessarily a correlation between trending topics on Twitter and TV ratings. In Alex Weprin's article for MediaBistro.com, he cites an example in CNN's AC360. According to Weprin, the program is the only news program that ranks in the top 40 television shows based on Twitter posts and comments, and yet it fails to make Nielsen's top 100. Weprin quotes Peter Kafka's explanation of this ranking phenomenon: "Sometimes Twitter gets excited about TV shows that lots of people don't care about. And sometimes TV's most popular shows aren't nearly as popular on the social messaging service." 

Kafka goes on to say, "...[S]ome of the most popular shows on TV are also a big deal on Twitter:  American Idol, Glee, and some of the NBA playoff games map very closely on the two rankings. But in other cases, there's a big disparity."

While Twitter may serve as a "water cooler effect" for a television show's reputation, there doesn't seem to be a straight relationship between what's being said on Twitter and how shows are rated. Perhaps in the future this may change, as people begin to spend more time online and less time in front of their TV sets. Until then, the two may remain to have a limited impact on one another.