#com 120

[dumasaphobicpoet]

And COM just put me in a bad mood making me think about the state of my relationships. BRUH. WHY?

[dfammedia-blog]

Access to Television: Fae

The development of new media has caused our access to television to increase significantly and in multiple ways.  The amount of television that we view now compared to what we viewed when television first came out has increased exponentially.  The amount of televisions that we see in people’s homes has also increased throughout the years.  Also through the invention of the internet came the development of streaming services. 

According to TV Basics (2012) the average American household today watches about eight hours of television a day.  This is equivalent to 56 hours of television viewing per week or four months of non-stop viewing a year.  With this statistic, if a person lived to be just 65 years old they would have watched 18 years of television!  This compared to the approximately four and a half hours of television that was being watched in 1950 is a huge difference.

In the graphs you can see how much the amount of televisions in the home has increased over the years.  In 1950 it started out as 9% of homes have a television, and in 2012 97.1% of household have a television.  Then when we look at the multiple television sets we see another jump.  In 1950 only 1% of houses had multiple televisions, and in 2012 58.5% of households have multiple televisions.

The reason that the amount of view time increased is because the amount of televisions in the home increased.  The amount of sets in homes increased because the technology became more easily available and therefore became cheaper.  This is all due to new media that has come out which makes it easier to put digital pictures on the screen.

Another development in new media that has increased our access to television is the internet and streaming services that are offered through the internet.  Some of the top streaming services that a person can subscribe to are Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, AppleTV, Google Chromecast, and Roku.  These are only seven of the many streaming services that are out there for people to use.  These streaming services allow viewers to watch their favorite shows whenever they want to.  It also is usually free of advertisements, so no commercials!  According to Dossier (2014) over 33 million Americans subscribe to some sort of streaming service.  This number keeps growing and will continue to grow as these services keep adding more shows. 

Our access to television has increased because we have more televisions in our homes due to the ubiquity of the technology needed to broadcast.  Also our access increased even further with the development of streaming services through the internet.

Note: Graphs were found at TV Basics (2012).

References

Dossier, S. (2014). Statistics and facts about Netflix. Retrieved from www.statista.com/topics/842/netflix/.

TV Basics (2012). TV Basics: A report on the growth and scope of television. Retrieved from www.tvb.org/media/file/TV_Basics.pdf.

[dfammedia-blog]

Social Media & Television: Fae

Social media has served television very well in recent years.  Every broadcasting network has different social media plans that they use to increase their viewership and to maintain their current fan groups.  There are multiple strategies that are in these social media plans.  Some strategies that Brown (2012) mentioned on Brainzooming.com are:

Use hashtags during the show

Promote the brand through social media

Do contests over social media

Feature viewer’s content on social media

Have live-tweet sessions with actors or actresses during the show

Use multiple social media channels

Throughout this blog my examples will be about ABC Family’s show Pretty Little Liars.  I think that this show does a lot of work with their social media team to make sure that they are doing everything that they can to keep their fans engaged in the show.

Pretty much every time that you turn on your television, no matter what channel is on; there is a hashtag of some sort in the corner of the screen.  Pretty Little Liars does this the entire time that they are on-air.  During the whole hour episode “#prettylittleliars” is in the top corner of the screen.  When something big happens or there is a funny moment a special hashtag appears and replaces the regular “#prettylittleliars”.  Some examples of these are “#AlisonIsAlive”, “#MonaKnows”, and “#RIPMona”.  Featuring hashtags during the show reinforces that viewers should be live-tweeting/posting while they are watching the show. 

ABC Family does a great job of promoting all of their shows through social media.  In between seasons of Pretty Little Liars they posted a countdown picture every day for the season premiere.  As a fan of this show at first I thought, “Really? They are starting to countdown; the season finale was last night.”  Then as the premiere got closer I found myself getting more and more excited.  Even though I was annoyed when it was 60 days out it still kept me thinking about the show. 

Pretty Little Liars also does some contests via social media to win free show merchandise and even trips to the set for the show.  Some of the contests over the years were singing or remixing the show’s theme song, creating a 12-page Pretty Little Liars calendar, and an “A is everywhere” photo contest.  These contests create more fan loyalty, especially if they win!  Not only that, if you are a fan and participating in these contests it just makes you more excited about the show each week.

Another way to create fan loyalty is by featuring your fans content on your social media pages.  Pretty Little Liars does this by re-tweeting their fans’ tweets during the show, posting fan art on Instagram, or reposting fans pictures of them dressed up as the characters or doing something related to the show.  This shows fans that the show really values their viewers, and it also encourages you to post content in hopes that you will get re-tweeted.

Having live-tweet sessions with characters from the show while the show is on gives fans an opportunity to actually talk to some of their favorite characters.  They can ask the actors or actresses questions about the show or even about their personal likes and dislikes.  Pretty Little Liars does this every week, rotating cast members.  I have seen questions like: “Who makes you laugh on set?” or “Do you like sweet or salty?”  Regardless of the question it makes fans feel like they are getting to know that actor or actress. 

The final and most important social media strategy is to use multiple social media channels.  I follow Pretty Little Liars on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, so every day I am bombarded with messages from Pretty Little Liars.  From the show’s standpoint this is a good thing because they are keeping their fans up to date on what is going on and keeping the excited about the show.

While every show and network uses a different social media plan most of the shows who are on the cutting-edge of social media use these six strategies: use hashtags during the show, promote the brand through social media, do contests over social media, feature viewer’s content on social media, have live-tweet sessions with actors or actresses during the show, an use multiple social media channels.

References

Brown, M. (2012). Social media: 19 content strategy ideas from a TV network. Retrieved from http://brainzooming.com/social-media-19-content-strategy-ideas-from-a-tv-network/14247/