Kantar Media has announced that it will extend its deal with Twitter in order to develop new tools for the TV industry in Spain, as it previously did in the UK, expanding its social TV measurement through Europe.
Kantar Media has been measuring Spain's TV habits for 25 years. As these habits are changing into more interactive viewing and extending to second screens, the company has decided to launch the social TV tool.
Kantar has been carrying out a pilot test this year to integrate the measurement of online TV with linear TV viewing.
Kantar's tool will be commercially available in 2014 and will bring social TV figures from Twitter together with the regular audience research of Kantar. The company intends to provide the media industry with data to assess programmes and series, plan effective promotions and integrate insights from social data into TV.
"Our partnership with Twitter will give broadcasters, agencies, and brands a holistic view of audience behaviour when viewing television content so that they can better understand and amplify the social engagement around their programming. Whilst electronic TV measurement services continue to be the recognised currency for TV viewing around the world, I'm delighted that we can bring to the Spanish and UK markets tools to complement the existing ratings services," said Andy Brown, Kantar's global CEO.
Spain's social TV is growing unstoppably since it started to be measured a year ago. "Our users love using Twitter while tuned into television to interact with talent and participate in the live social conversation about TV. In this way, Twitter has become a live companion to the TV viewing experience for millions of people in Spain and around the world," explained Ali Rowghani, Twitter's COO.
In Spain, the social audiences were initially only being measured by Tuitele. Then, at the beginning of October, the website Vertele launched Trend TV to present a daily report on social TV, at the same time offering Kantar Media's audience figures.
