This document discusses the institutionalization of social TV analytics as a new market information regime in the television industry. It describes how Nielsen ratings were previously the primary currency for buying and selling TV audiences, but new technologies and audience fragmentation have made Nielsen inadequate. Social TV analytics, which measure audience engagement on social media, are emerging as a supplementary regime. The document analyzes this change using a framework of institutional change, discussing precipitating events, deinstitutionalization of Nielsen, experimentation with social analytics, growing adoption, and their establishment as a new supplementary regime.

1. Towards a Tyranny of Tweeters?
The Institutionalization of Social TV Analytics as
Market Information Regime
Allie Kosterich
Philip M. Napoli
Rutgers University
School of Communication & Information
Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication
San Francisco, California
August 7, 2015

2. ● Nielsen ratings: primary currency for buying and selling TV
audiences
● Technological development, diversity of programming, increase in
programming delivery platforms, continued audience
fragmentation → inadequate measurement
● 80% of networks don’t qualify for Nielsen ratings (as of 2011)
Television Audience Marketplace
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

3. ● socially constructed mechanisms by which marketplace participants
assess their performance and the performance of their competitors
(Anand and Peterson, 2000)
○ e.g., movie box office reports, university rankings, book best-seller
charts
● Nielsen Ratings: television’s primary market information regime
● Social analytic-based ratings: television’s supplementary market
information regime?
Market Information Regimes
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

4. Greenwood et al. (2002) process of institutional change
Institutionalization
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

5. Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion
Institutionalization in the TV Audience Marketplace
adapted from Greenwood et al. (2002)

6. Stage 1: Precipitating Jolts
● Technological change
● Audience fragmentation
● Inadequate measurement
● Destabilization of established ratings
practices
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

7. Stage 2: Deinstitutionalization
● “Backchannel” of audience data
● Emergence of social TV analytics
● Entrance of new startup players
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

8. Stage 3: Preinstitutionalization
● Experimentation with social TV analytics
● Evaluation of engagement as alternative
metric
● Exploration and participation by industry
consortia
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

9. Stage 4: Theorization
● Moral legitimacy via connections between
social TV analytics and “big data”
● Pragmatic legitimacy via relationship
between social TV activity and advertising
recall
● Pragmatic legitimacy via adoption of social
TV ratings as currency for underserved
stakeholders
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

10. Stage 5: Diffusion
● Growing adoption of social TV analytics
● Utilization of social TV analytics in
organizational decision-making
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

11. Stage 6: Reinstitutionalization
● Incumbent cooptation
● Social TV analytics as supplementary
market information regime
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

12. ● Social TV analytics as supplementary market information regime.
● Tyranny of Tweeters? Unlikely.
● TV industry can (must?) embrace additional value criteria beyond
exposure.
Future research:
● Cultural implications of additional MIR
● Comparative analyses of “hit” programs
● Assessment of social TV analytic methodologies
● Examination of incorporation of social TV analytics in organizational
routines
Discussion and Future Research
Overview Theoretical Framing Institutionalization in TV Marketplace Conclusion

13. THANK YOU
Allie Kosterich
@allkost
allie.kosterich@rutgers.edu
Philip M. Napoli
@pmnapoli