Exclusive: an inside look at Univision’s ‘La Banda’ success with social TV
Univision’s Simon Cowell, Ricky Martin backed, “La Banda,”which airs at 8pm ET tonight has been performing extremely well across social TV. The reality show to find the best band has proven how strong Univision’s audience is especially compared to CBS, ABC and FOX. According to Nielsen Social the show’s airing on Sunday, November 1st achieved the following successes:
- Univision had the most socially engaged broadcast network audience in terms of Tweets per unique author.
- Univision's La Banda had the most socially engaged program audience in terms of Tweets per unique author.
- Univision's La Banda was the #1 most social broadcast program on TV (excluding sports events, ranked on unique authors/tweets).
- The official program handle of La Banda (@labanda) was the #2 most social series program account.
"La Banda” also became the first primetime show to implement “validated Facebook hashtag voting” (they already use Twitter voting) which is powered by Telescope. According to the network linear viewership has also been growing week after week. Last Sunday's episode reached 4.6 million Total Viewers 2+ and after eight airings, “La Banda” has reached 14 million Total Viewers 2+ so far. Found Remote interviewed Sameer Deen Univision's SVP of Univision Digital about the success in advance of tonight’s airing.
Found Remote: Why do you think La Banda has seen such growth?
Sameer Deen: La Banda is truly a multiplatform entertainment program – we are delivering on our audience’s music passion with content and experiences that are native to them in terms of devices and platforms. The second screen experiences we created via Univision Conecta and social media have really driven engagement and awareness – the audiences, the fans have the opportunity to be part of the content, interact with the participants and actually get to decide who becomes the next music sensation. The Nielsen Social numbers, app engagement and ratings success week after week speak to the success of this approach.
FR: Why did you decide to start using Facebook voting? Was it hard to implement? How did it do compared to Twitter?
SD: Part of our content engagement strategy is to ensure we are reaching our existing and new audiences in the platforms they consume. Twitter hashtag voting has proven to deliver incredible engagement as we reward our viewers with the power to decide. Adding Facebook, with its tremendous user base and the incredible reach and engagement we have, was a natural step to ensure we provide our viewers with another touch point to voice their vote.
FR: Do you think the digital/social success helped with traditional ratings?
SD: Yes, our content engagement strategy and specifically the development of the Univision Conecta App powered by Screenz was critical to ensure we keep that engagement and awareness round the clock and in relevant pockets, with the goal to help drive viewership.
FR: Anything else?
SD: We’ve truly created amazing opportunities not only to reach our highly engaged audience but also leverage that consumption to create the perfect experiences for our advertising partners. Verizon, as an example, is the official voting partner and presenting sponsor of Univision Conecta. The experiences we’ve created for our partners have span all platforms organically while delivering on their marketing goals.
Univision has big plans for the year beyond “La Banda.” See Found Remote’s interview with EVP and General Manager of Univision Digital Mark Lopez here.
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