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Future of TV Union Metrics TV Busts

The biggest social TV busts from the past week: 'Best Time Ever' departs without a bang

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By Natan Edelsburg, SVP

December 21, 2015 | 6 min read

As the year wraps up the past week was extremely busy for TV. From debates, to cancelations and major new trailers there was a lot of hype and of course some busts. Here are the complete insights from Union Metrics and their editor-in-chief Jenn Deering Davis.

The biggest bust from the past week?

So what was the biggest bust this week? That dubious honor goes to NBC and NPH and news of Best Time Ever's cancellation. For a show that started with such promise, it was disappointing to see it fade away like this. But Neil Patrick Harris will recover. NBC probably will, too.

Summary of the top moments from the past week:

It was a relatively quiet week for TV news last week; Star Wars pretty much dominated every corner of entertainment media. But, there were other things happening in TV land last week. In fact, some of the biggest TV news related to previews for upcoming seasons or series.

  • For example, Spike released the trailer for the next season of Lip Sync Battle on December 14. LSB starts its season two on January 7, and the trailer features celebrities like Christina Aguilera, Channing Tatum and Shaq. It's found a modest but engaged audience on social media over its first season.
  • After that, Netflix released the first Fuller House trailer on December 17. In case you haven't seen this news, Netflix recently announced they were bringing Full House back for a sequel called Fuller House. It's set to premiere in February 2016.
  • And then the first Twin Peaks revival teaser was released on December 18. Showtime is bringing the show back for a new TV series that is expected to air in 2017. Last week, Showtime released the first teaser video about the new series, which features a voiceover from Michael Horse, an actor in the original series.
  • It wasn't all trailers last week, though. The Republican party held its final televised presidential debate in 2015 last week. This round of debates began in August, and there's been one a month since then.
  • And finally, NBC canceled "Best Time Ever" with Neil Patrick Harris. Best Time Ever started in December and failed to capture a large audience or hit the ratings the network expected.

How did each do on Twitter?

  • The GOP debate fared surprisingly well on Twitter. For some historical context, there were 2.3 million tweets posted about the first debate on August 6, and 1.6 million tweets for the second on September 16. Interest then slowed down in October and November. But it came back pretty strong last week, with the final 2015 debate generating 1.7million tweets on December 15. This is particularly impressive given that this is the fifth such debate in five months; viewers (and hopefully potential voters) don't see to be tired of them yet. That's good news, since there are 11 more months before the election.
  • As for news of NBC canceling Best Time Ever, it looks like news of the cancelation generated about as much enthusiasm as the show itself did. When the show premiered back in September, its first episode earned just 16k tweets, well below expectations for a show starring someone of Neil Patrick Harris' reputation. It's only generated 111k tweets the entire season. So when news of the cancelation only generated about 1k tweets, we weren't particularly surprised.
  • So now on to our trailers… How did they do? Lip Sync Battle typically generates about 2,000 tweets a day. Popular episodes - like Joseph Gordon-Levitt's recent appearance - tend to generate spikes of 20k tweets over the span of a few days as clips are shared around social. The new trailer earned 8,000 tweets around its release. That's a respectable increase.
  • Full House ran from 1987 to 1995 on ABC; it's been airing exclusively in syndication for 20 years. Yet it still earns about 5,000 tweets a day even now. The brand new Fuller House trailer generated 200,000 tweets on the day it was released, and continues to go strong. An increase of 40x is pretty impressive for a simple teaser trailer that reveals little about a new show based on an older show that's been off the air for two decades.
  • The Twin Peaks trailer generated 10,000 tweets on the day it was released. There are normally about 1,500 tweets a day about Twin Peaks, so this is a sizable increase and good for a series that won't premiere for more than a year.

Jenn Deering Davis is Editor-in-Chief of the San Francisco-based social analytics company Union Metrics. She has 15 years of industry and academic experience in organizational communications, social media and research, spending her career turning turning data into effective stories and helping stakeholders more easily understand new technologies. Union Metrics has been delivering social media answers to brands and marketers since the company launched TweetReach in 2009. Today, Union Metrics’ multi-channel social analytics are used by thousands of digital marketers at the world’s most innovative brands to optimize social media strategies and create impactful campaigns across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Tumblr. Visit Union Metrics at unionmetrics.com and @unionmetrics to learn more.

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Future of TV Union Metrics TV Busts

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