Nielsen to measure TV talk on Twitter

The Twitter haters are losing the war.

You know who they are, or, perhaps, who you are. Those who dismiss the snappy social network as the Platonic Non-Ideal of oversharing undercooked ideas, of blurting out what’s better left unsaid.

(AP/AP) - Tate Stevens performs during ”The X Factor” Finale.

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It was once safe to be in the hater camp; an unassailable position, really, like loathing Nickelback. But the haters’ numbers are dwindling and — dun dun dunnnnn! — the establishment has sided with the upstart. Consumer information giant Nielsen is partnering with Twitter to create the Nielsen Twitter TV Rating, “a syndicated-standard metric around the reach of the TV conversation on Twitter,” to be made available at the beginning of this fall’s TV season.

This is exciting stuff, people! We’ve been stuck with an antiquated rating system for quite a while now, one that’s still grappling with issues like “What about people who don’t watch shows during their scheduled time slot?” and “How do we count the masses who don’t watch TV shows on a television but instead use these other newfangled devices, like laptops and tablets and smartphones?” That Nielsen considers the conversation about television on Twitter too loud to ignore is a major development in Entertainmentland.

It’s also potentially big news for ardent fans of little-watched shows. This new rating could provide a metric for recognizing the shows about which some people care deeply — say, NBC’s cult-favorite sitcom “Community” — instead of simply rewarding the programs that lots of people just happen to have on, like the soundtrack to laundry-folding that is the “CSI” empire.

“Twitter commands a huge amount of public discussion in terms of social TV and social activity around TV,” said Matt Anchin, senior vice president of global communications at Nielsen. “So it makes very good sense to look at the activity there.”

(More: 2012’s top social television shows)

Both advertisers and broadcasters want to get a handle on the impact of Twitter. “Everyone wants to understand the full audience. . . . Today you can get volume: how many tweets there have been about a specific show, program, celebrity or brand. To see the fullness of that conversation, it’s, who read those tweets as well? That’s ultimately what this is about. You’ll get that full view of the total audience.”

Anyone who’s been on Twitter for at least a year could probably have seen this coming. For many, Twitter has become an integral part of the television-watching experience. The social conversation on Twitter about TV increased 800 percent from 2011 to 2012.

Mark Ghuneim, CEO of online analytics company Trendrrsaid the new rating “provides the whole industry a currency and legitimizing media around engagement. I think it’s important from that perspective. Twitter is the heartbeat of social TV.”

Though the television industry has a track record of wariness when it comes to the Internet, broadcasters are becoming more accepting of Twitter. Cast members tweet about upcoming episodes, networks promote specific hashtags for viewers to use during shows and, in the case of HBO’s “Girls,” it’s a prominent piece of an ad campaign. “What we find is that, increasingly, the entire industry is embracing that cross-platform approach,” said Anchin.