If social media is the new water cooler, U.S. viewers certainly had their share of “let’s discuss” moments in 2014. From someone kind of getting devoured by an anaconda to the U.S. Men’s World Cup soccer squad trying to make a go of it to, well, zombies, there’s no shortage of Twitter activity during programs—and even in the days after.
This year, given the myriad social TV conversations taking place 24/7, Nielsen ranked the top series, special event telecasts and top sports events across Twitter. Nielsen also revealed the most-Tweeted-about minute in each category. After all, those OMG occasions often act as calls to action, prompting viewers to take to Twitter, and reminding fans who may have missed an episode to catch up in the days to come.
For the second year in a row, AMC had a show that topped our series list. The Walking Dead, in all its undead glory, had an average of nearly 5 million people seeing at least one Tweet about each new episode of the program. There was clearly a lot to talk about, as people sent an average of 576,000 Tweets about each episode.
2014 Top 10 Series on Twitter
| Rank | Program | Network | Average Audience (000) | Average Tweets (000) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Walking Dead | AMC | 4,934 | 576 |
| 2 | The Bachelor | ABC | 3,842 | 215 |
| 3 | Pretty Little Liars | ABC Family | 3,807 | 489 |
| 4 | American Horror Story: Freak Show | FX | 3,607 | 357 |
| 5 | Game of Thrones | HBO | 3,507 | 159 |
| 6 | Teen Wolf | MTV | 2,631 | 383 |
| 7 | Scandal | ABC | 2,574 | 391 |
| 8 | The Bachelorette | ABC | 2,410 | 104 |
| 9 | The Voice | NBC | 2,063 | 236 |
| 10 | Dancing With the Stars | ABC | 1,895 | 109 |
| Source: Nielsen |
The most-Tweeted TV series minute of 2014: The Voice (NBC), which garnered 310K Tweets at 8:59 p.m. EST on May 13, 2014.
2014 Top 10 Specials on Twitter
| Rank | Program | Date | Network | Audience (000) | Tweets (000) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Oscars | 03/02/14 | ABC | 13,924 | 11,163 |
| 2 | The 56th Annual Grammy Awards | 01/26/14 | CBS | 12,825 | 13,779 |
| 3 | 2014 MTV Video Music Awards | 08/24/14 | MTV | 10,890 | 12,644 |
| 4 | The 71st Annual Golden Globe Awards | 01/12/14 | NBC | 10,437 | 2,359 |
| 5 | 2014 American Music Awards | 11/23/14 | ABC | 10,265 | 5,651 |
| 6 | 2014 Billboard Music Awards | 05/18/14 | ABC | 10,179 | 5,450 |
| 7 | The BET Awards 2014 | 06/29/14 | BET | 9,302 | 10,891 |
| 8 | 2014 MTV Movie Awards | 04/13/14 | MTV | 9,100 | 2,411 |
| 9 | State of the Union 2014 | 01/28/14 | TV Event | 8,798 | 2,088 |
| 10 | The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards | 08/25/14 | NBC | 8,763 | 1,102 |
| Source: Nielsen |
The most-Tweeted special event minute of 2014: The Oscars (ABC), which garnered 203K Tweets at 10:07 p.m. EST on March 2, 2014.
2014 Top 10 Sports Events on Twitter
| Rank | Program | Sports Event | Date | Network | Audience (000) | Tweets (000) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Super Bowl XLVIII | Denver Broncos vs. Seattle Seahawks | 02/02/14 | FOX*, FOX Deportes | 15,318 | 25,328 |
| 2 | 2014 FIFA World Cup | Round of 16: Belgium vs. United States | 07/01/14 | ESPN*, ESPN Deportes, Univision, Univision Deportes | 12,399 | 4,692 |
| 3 | 2014 FIFA World Cup | Final: Germany vs. Argentina | 07/13/14 | ABC*, Univision, Univision Deportes | 11,936 | 4,927 |
| 4 | 2014 FIFA World Cup | Group G: United States vs. Germany | 06/26/14 | ESPN*, Univision, Univision Deportes | 11,459 | 2,537 |
| 5 | NFL Football | NFC Championship: San Francisco 49ers at Seattle Seahawks | 01/19/14 | FOX*, FOX Deportes | 11,383 | 4,957 |
| 6 | 2014 FIFA World Cup | First Semifinal: Brazil vs. Germany | 07/08/14 | ESPN*, Univision, Univision Deportes | 11,203 | 5,682 |
| 7 | 2014 FIFA World Cup | Group G: Ghana vs. United States | 06/16/14 | ESPN*, ESPN Deportes, Univision, Univision Deportes | 11,162 | 3,115 |
| 8 | 2014 FIFA World Cup | Group G: United States vs. Portugal | 06/22/14 | ESPN*, ESPN Deportes, Univision, Univision Deportes | 11,013 | 3,629 |
| 9 | NFL Football | AFC Championship: New England Patriots at Denver Broncos | 01/19/14 | CBS | 10,863 | 2,492 |
| 10 | 2014 Vizio BCS National Championship | Auburn vs. Florida State | 01/06/14 | ESPN*, ESPN Deportes | 10,404 | 4,392 |
| Source: Nielsen |
The most-Tweeted sports event minute of 2014: Super Bowl XLVIII (FOX), which garnered 301K Tweets at 10:00 p.m. EST on Feb. 2, 2014.
Methodology
Source: Nielsen. Data from 1/1/2014-11/30/2014. Nielsen Social captures relevant Tweets in the U.S. from three hours before through three hours after broadcast, local time. Unique Audience measures the audience of relevant Tweets ascribed to a program from when the Tweets are sent until the end of the broadcast day at 5am. Sports Events, Series, and Specials include those on Broadcast and National Cable Networks only. Sports Events and Specials are across all day parts and are ranked by Unique Audience for each individual telecast. Series include new/live primetime and late fringe programming only and are ranked by Average Unique Audience across New/Live episodes during the time period. For multicast Sports Events, networks are listed alphabetically and metrics reflect the highest Unique Audience across all airing networks, denoted with an asterisk. Data does not include airings from 6/13/14-6/15/14; reach metrics are unavailable for those dates.
