Twitter and Nielsen devise TV ratings Twitter is linking with media measurement company Nielsen to create a television ratings system based on the chatter that TV shows spark on the microblogging site. Called the Nielse Twitter TV Rating, the new system will help media companies and marketers determine the commercial value of a television show by calculating the total number of people who tweet about a programme as well as the number of people who see those messages. Television shows that ignite more conversations on social media, in theory, would be deemed more valuable to advertisers because the viewers are considered more engaged with the programme. The deal represents an attempt by Nielsen to keep pace with the rapidly changing media landscape amid growing scrutiny over its ability to accurately measure how people consume television programmes across a range of devices, from the TV set to a tablet. For Twitter, the multiyear deal represents its latest effort to cosy up to the television industry and the $65bn in advertising spending it commands each year. "This is a big step forward to better understanding the volume and impact of commentary around TV programmes," said Steve Hasker, president of global media products and advertiser solutions at Nielsen. The companies declined to provide financial details about the arrangement. For the past several years, marketers have tapped social media data to help them better gauge the commercial value of a television programme and identify shows generating "buzz." For example, musical comedy drama Glee last spring catapulted from 74th place in Nielsen rankings to the second-ranked programme in a ratings system created by Publicis's Optimedia that analyses information from Facebook, Twitter and range of other sources. "Social data help find a diamond in the rough," said Rob Norman, chief digital officer at WPP's GroupM media buying arm. "The question, from an advertisers" point of view, is how do you attach yourself to the social stream of conversations?" Twitter executives have taken a more collaborative stance in dealing with TV than some in Silicon Valley who see the handsome advertising budgets allocated to TV as a source of their own future revenues. Chloe Sladden, Twitter's vice-president of media, said in a statement that the company would be "collaborating with Twitter ecosystem partners on this metric to help broadcasters and advertisers create truly social TV experiences," for instance enabling producers to integrate tweets or trends directly into their shows or making it easier for advertisers to buy "promoted tweets" when people click on hashtags or search for phrases prompted by the one-screen action. The deal also highlights the importance of live events to Twitter. After experimenting this year with dedicated pages of handpicked tweets about Nascar races and the London Olympics, with mixed results, live events are expected to see more focus at Twitter in 2013. A recent study by Deloitte found that the most popular shows on Twitter tend to be soap operas, talent contests and news. While a UK poll found that 30 per cent of people regularly use Facebook or Twitter while watching TV, only a "tiny" portion of the audience posts tweets about the show. "Twitter is backing vocals not lead vocals - TV is the "alpha screen,"" said Paul Lee, head of technology, media and telecoms research at Deloitte.