Twitter partners up with Kantar Media for the new metrics

Oct 2, 2014 14:53 GMT  ·  By

Twitter is turning on the TV ratings feature in the United Kingdom, more than a year after the original announcement. The new capability comes with the help of Kantar Media, a subsidiary of WPP.

The service includes a range of metrics, as well as the possibility to create specific data feeds, and an analytics dashboard. It will all go live by the middle of October, which means that there are only a few more days left.

As mentioned, the deal between Kantar Media and Twitter was announced more than a year ago. They said at the time that they’d work to expand Twitter TV ratings beyond the United States and into the United Kingdom and Spain, as well as Nordic countries, Russia, some parts of Africa and nations in the southeast area of Asia.

The new deals will follow the same model Twitter has established in the United States where the company works with Nielsen.

New metrics for the UK

Twitter reasons that people use a lot of Twitter while watching television shows and it has been proven to be a rather reliable source in telling how much various shows are liked by fans. The social network can tell how consumers respond to the content, as well how the popular the programming was among Twitter community.

The Kantar Twitter TV Ratings will also include new metrics that haven’t been available before in the UK. For instance, they’ll be able to tell the affinity to brands, channels and programs of unique authors, as well as the number of times that a tweet or retweet has been seen about a particular program.

“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.  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,” said Andy Brown, Global CEO and Chairman of Kantar Media.

The company has also built an intuitive dashboard, Instar Social, that broadcasters, media agencies and advertisers can use to view and analyze data alongside the existing TV analysis tools. It will include a live, real-time leaderboard, which proves a snapshot of the top Tweeted programs as they happen.