TVGuide.com Breaks through the Social TV Barrier

24Oct/110

TVGuide.com Breaks through the Social TV Barrier

There is a major phenomenon taking place under the radar of most industry observers. It’s called social TV. The youngsters are taking to it like a frog to water. They are using tablets, smartphones and PCs, not for the purpose of just watching a TV show or movie, but as companion screens to chat, get information and rate the shows as they watch.

TVGuide.com has been at the forefront of social TV with a record 24 million unique visitors in September. Its app for mobile devices has been downloaded an amazing five million times.

This week it signed up ION Television as its 50th sponsor of Social Spotlight for the “Flashpoint” TV series. Social Spotlight provides information that fans need to engage in “companion screen” discussions through Facebook, Twitter and TVGuide.com

“Both users and advertisers have embraced social TV on our site, and we’re happy to share the milestone of our 50th social sponsorship this year with ION,” said Christy Tanner, EVP and general manager of TV Guide Digital. She said there is no direct one-to-one competitor to TVGuide.com. That’s despite the fact the pay TV companies and their STB makers are talking about deploying their own social networking and that a number of start-ups have similar aims. Tanner said the company does not have any announced plans to embed its app in the pay TV companies STBs.

The TVGuide.com Strategy
Tanner said TVGuide.com has a big jump on potential challengers:
- A great brand name — everyone is familiar with TV Guide and what it does.
- Consumer trust.
- Authority that comes from its 10+ years of experience and enormous database.
- Two-year lead time developing apps for mobile devices, which the young like to use while watching TV.
- Growth from four million to 24 million unique users.
- Access to data about shows from over 120 online video services, DVDs and Blu-ray discs, national TV networks and the pay TV networks.
- Revenue that comes from advertisers attracted by its users’ demographics.

TVGuide.com has an app that’s available on new TV sets from Vizio, the US’ largest seller of LCD TV sets. The app does not include the guide grid but has other TVGuide.com services such as finding the sources for shows and social networking. We expect the smart TV app will start appearing on other smart TVs, Blu-ray players, game consoles and smart TV adapters.

To read the rest of this article, please subscribe.