I nearly missed the ‘Enter’ button on my netbook when I was tweeting and watching Hollyoaks and read happened upon this article from the Guradian’s media section feed.
“TV viewing up despite social networking”
The article explains how the worries of experts within the TV industry that social networking would take viewers away from TV had not been realised on the back of findings released by OFCOM today.
The Guardian reports that the OFCOM findings show “Viewers watched an average of three hours and 45 minutes of television a day in 2009, 3% more than in 2004″
For me, this seems a ludicrous and narrow-minded vision of what social can do for television. There is nothing better and more sociable than watching a TV programme and tweeting along with your followers and with a wider audience when using a hashtag too.
#dragonsden #bgt #queenofshops #worldcup #JuniorApprentice #Wimbledon #BB11 #Sherlock are just a few programmes that have a committed audience that consume the broadcast and share their insight, disgust, quips or snide comments with others in near real time on Twitter.
From my own experience, I know that tweeting along to television can be a valuable experience and above all a social and enjoyable one too.
I wouldn’t miss #XFactor for anything when I know @Popjustice @Charltonbrooker or @Crablin are going to be watching with me and passing comment and adding to the dialogue of countless others.
TV has always been an inherently social activity but with a delay. The office buzz the morning after a particularly eventful episode of any given soap has always been labelled as ‘water-cooler chat’ – Twitter just cuts down the lag-time. The challenge for those that make programmes is to fight for viewers’ attention in an ever reduced attention span market, if you will.
Integrating social into television hardware is already here but not widely available and therefore not widely used. Im not sure if this level of functionality is something I would want from my TV set, I am happy enough with the near surgical attachment of my iPhone and netbook for now thanks.
