Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Measuring Audience Engagement

Measuring Audience Engagement

Some advertisers are starting to look at audience engagement, instead of viewership (eyeballs), as a measurement of the effectiveness of TV programming in connecting with viewers, according to the April 28 issue of Broadcasting & Cable (B&C). Chief Marketing Officers are under pressure to come up with new metrics to measure advertising initiatives and the engagement metric is apparently more acceptable than ROI among general advertisers and their agencies.

IAG Research has come up with a ranking for the top 12 programs by engagement. This ranking reveals some surprising findings. A CW series One Tree Hill is ranked 184th among primetime network series among adults 18-49, based on ratings, however it is tied for sixth place in the IAG engagement rankings. More familiar shows comprise most of the other slots in the top rankings, such as Heroes (ranking #1), Lost, Prison Break and 30 Rock. However, there are other, lesser-known shows, such as Welcome to the Captain and Chuck that also make the list. Heroe’s had an engagement index of 121, which means that viewers of this series are 21% more attentive than viewers of the average primetime series, according to B&C. It’s interesting that Prison Break has more than twice the audience of One Tree Hill, but they are tied in terms of audience engagement.

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