Viacom research spots global trends
By Jon Lafayette -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/21/2013 9:29:44 AM

The ways social media is having an impact on TV -- and vice versa -- is a both a big deal here and a global phenomenon, according to a new study by Viacom.

In "When Networks Network: TV Gets Social," Viacom says viewers have three main reasons for TV-related social media use. Those are: Functional, such as searching for show schedules; communal, such as connecting with others; and playful, spending time with games or entering contests.

In the U.S., those drivers lead viewers to engage in an average 11 TV-related activities on social media platforms weekly. Some of the biggest ones are interacting with friends and fans (69%), following and liking a TV show (59%), sharing or recommending (65%), watching clips and trailers (60%), searching for info on when shows air (69%) and playing games and signing up for free stuff (53%).

"Our objective with this research was not only to understand what drives our audiences to social media, but also to see how their social media activity impacts viewing behaviors," Colleen Fahey Rush, executive VP and chief research officer of Viacom Media Networks. "At Viacom, we're focused on creating social experiences that continue the conversation off-screen and deepen the relationships between our fans and their favorite shows and characters."

According to the report, function trumps all other motivating factors, including socializing, when it comes to TV-related social media use. That was true of all the countries in the study, with viewers in Germany leaning the most towards the functional motivations. Viewers are more interested in the experiences and content offered by networks and TV shows than communicating with others on social media. READ MORE

As the calendar turned to October, our nation’s thoughts turned to the upcoming election, and as such, people are likely consuming more news during this time of year than others. For the next two months, the adage “all politics is local” is particularly true—with plenty of presidential swing states in play, as well as state and local elections, and ballot initiatives.

So it’s quite timely that late last month the Pew Internet & American Life Project issued the results of new research, “How people get local news and information in different communities,” a nationally-representative telephone survey of American adults exploring local news consumption habits by various community types. And there were a number of interesting results relevant to radio—in particular, radio has tremendous ongoing relevance as a means of delivering news to certain communities, and technologies like mobile are helping to escalate this relevance.

Increasingly, people are creating their own mash-ups of news sources: It’s not news that the splintering of media has changed people’s consumption habits—we’re not all watching Walter Cronkite, or Katie Couric, for that matter, anymore. But it is interesting to note that, rather than relying on one or two main sources of local news, most adults use a wide variety of both traditional and online sources. Close to half of urbanites and suburbanites use a combination of traditional, online, and mobile news media to get their local news, while 38 percent of those living in small cities and 27 percent of rural residents do so.

“Social” media is important, but used—and even defined—differently in various communities: Urban residents are most likely to “be part of the news” by using social media to share news with friends and even tips with editors. Suburbanites are most heavily into social media as a means to find news. And rural residents define “social” in a more classic way: word-of-mouth sources.

Mobile is emerging as a medium for consuming news: More than half of urban (53 percent) and suburban (57 percent) residents get some kind of local news or information via cell phone or tablet computer; but even small city (45 percent) and rural (35 percent) are using the devices to get local news. These can include apps, mobile search, mobile websites, and opt-in news text alerts from local media—including radio. READ MORE