Is Facebook Driving a Ratings Resurgence in Event TV?

(MoneyWatch) 

We've all read by now that ratings for Sunday's Super Bowl XLIV set a record, of over 106 U.S. viewers, beating the M*A*S*H finale of 1983 by roughly a half million viewers. That, in and of itself, might be surprising, because we all know -- don't we? -- that media has fragmented into a million pieces. We don't all watch the same shows anymore ... or do we?

Here's the thing -- and it's quite a thing: ratings are up for nearly all of the major event-driven TV in the last 12 months: the Oscars (bouncing back from a record low in 2008), the Emmys, the Grammys, the Golden Globes, MTV's Video Music Awards and Movie Awards (up 78 percent!), the NCAA Final Four and the World Series (granted, it was Yankees/Phillies). In fact, after looking up ratings stats on ten event-driven TV programs this morning, only one -- the NBA Finals -- posted a ratings decline last year. In fact, getting back to the Super Bowl ratings, per Mediaweek, four of the top five Super Bowl audiences have come in the last four years.

Something's going on here, and I think it's this: social media. Consider that as of right now, Facebook has 400 million users worldwide; in 2007, soon after it opened the floodgates of membership beyond academia, it had 50 million users worldwide. Its audience has grown eight-fold in three years, and of course it's not alone in showing hockey-stick style growth. Platforms like Twitter and the rise of more sophisticated mobile devices, which take social media with people, have all contributed to a new network effect that seems to be having hugely positive ruboff on at least some parts of old media.

To put this in terms that any media buyer could love -- social media has become the new reach and frequency, building awareness and interest in big events steadily to hundreds of millions of people. Certainly, this works completely differently from how TV used to be promoted -- via relentless on-air shilling to audiences who were already there anyway -- but the net effect of all of these millions of status updates, tweets and shared bits of content has a similar result. Though I admit to being pretty deep into the social media world, there is nothing else I can point to in terms of a major shift in media consumption (and, in this case, creation) over the last five years that's capable of explaining the sudden surge in ratings in these shows. There's no other common denominator. In a typical year, some events have built in appeal (take the 2008 Summer Olympics and Michael Phelps as one example), while others don't. But this phenomenon is cutting across a wide array of events, and all in the same year.

Time to cue NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics -- and this year's Oscars -- to see what happens with their ratings.

Previous coverage of Super Bowl XLIV at BNET Media:

• The Super Bowl Goes Social, But Wasn't It Already?
• Allegedly Banned Super Bowl Ads: A Story that Deserves to Die
• Super Bowl Reflects Ramping Interactive Ad Scene
• Google's Super Bowl Touchdown: "We're Lovable, Not Evil"