SRG Study Reveals That 27 Percent of Canadians Talk About TV Show Online

By: Jeff Stewart  |   November 6th, 2012   |   Mobile Apps, News, O Canada, Social Media

Today people around the globe are not only sharing their daily matters and general problems online with their friends and family members, they are also discussing the things they watch on television as well. According to the latest survey report from Toronto based Solutions Research Group (SRG), over 27 percent of internet users in Canada now chat online about the various TV shows they are watching.

 

Solutions Research Group (SRG) has dubbed these people “social TV viewers”. This online sharing relating to TV shows take place on popular social networking platforms Facebook and Twitter, as people post and interact with others. In addition to this, mobile apps through which online users can watch TV shows and also get in touch with the fellow fans of the same program were also included in this survey.

 

The percentage of Facebook users who post comments related to TV shows had risen from 25 percent to 31 percent in just one year, as per the SRG survey. Similarly the proportion of respondents who had “Liked” a show in the previous year has improved to 29 percent from 26 percent. There is also a small percentage of Canadians online that have “Liked” a TV channel and its overall programming, accounting for a total of 9 percent.

 

After identifying the “social TV viewers” President of SRG, Kaan Yigit explained their importance by saying that, “Social TV is a real opportunity for marketers on two levels. One, they can create better ads and target them better as they have access to unprecedented real-time access to audience reactions to shows and characters they are associated with. Two, by listening to social TV interactions, they can inform their own social media strategies on Facebook and Twitter.”

 

The role that social networking websites play can also be judged by the fact that SRG’s survey has portrayed Twitter as a “legitimate” medium for broadcasters to get in touch with the viewers. Nearly a quarter of online users in Canada access Twitter to follow their favourite TV show, an increase from 21 percent last year. Moreover, the proportion of people who said that they had watched a TV show after a tweet reminded them that it is was on the air also rose from 11 percent to 15 percent, indicating Twitter’s use as a means of spreading news.

 

Aside from this, the percentage of Twitter users in Canada, who post clips or video of a TV show, has also increased to 17 percent from 14 percent, whereas 25 percent people made a comment on a TV show on their page.

 

This study also revealed that 27 percent “social TV viewers” discuss the content of the TV show, whereas 16 percent of them share their “Like” for a particular program and 8 percent of the people online talk about a character or a participant of a reality show.

 

However, the majority of these “social TV viewers” are expected to be female, as their proportion is 54 percent in contrast to males at 46 percent. The vast majority (88 percent) of the “social TV viewers” are between 12 and 49 years of age, making the mean age 33 years.

 

If segregation is made on the basis of regions, then Ontario stands at the top with 40 percent of the “social TV viewer” public. Western Canada comes in at the second spot with 31 percent proportion with the Atlantic coming in at third with a proportion of 10 percent.

 

Source: Marketing Mag