Kantar Media readies Twitter TV ratings tools

WPP-owned audience research firm Kantar Media is set to roll out its new Kantar Twitter TV Ratings tools in the UK from the middle of this month. 

Unveiling the official UK Twitter metric for measuring Twitter TV audience engagement, Kantar said that this would bring together geofiltered UK Twitter data with its own audience research.

The engagement measuring tools are the product of a global partnership between Kantar and Twitter, announced last year, and are designed to let broadcasters, media agencies and advertisers track “exactly how Twitter amplifies the power of television.”

Kantar said that Twitter TV Ratings will include new metrics that have never been available before in the UK, including: unique Twitter ‘authors’ and their affinity to brands, channels and programmes; unique audiences – measuring the number of individuals who viewed Tweets related to individual programmes; an impressions – the total number of times that a Tweet or retweet has been seen about a particular programme.

”The launch of the first official Twitter TV metrics in the UK gives the broadcast industry official insight for social TV engagement to complement the BARB gold-standard TV measurement currency,” said Andy Brown, global CEO and chairman of Kantar Media.

“Using the Kantar Twitter TV Ratings broadcasters, planners and advertisers will be able to assess programmes and series, plan programme promotions more effectively and assist media buyers and sellers to integrate social data more comprehensively into the TV component of their media mix.”

Other tools included as part of the TV Ratings include: existing metrics like the number of Tweets and retweets about a programme before, during and after transmission; and the average Tweets per minute and the highest volume of Tweets per minute ascribed to the programme in question.