Reconfiguring the “Hits”: The New Portrait of Television Program Success in an Era of Big Data

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article explores the impact of evolving conceptions of the audience by analyzing television’s “hits” as portrayed by two market information regimes: traditional Nielsen ratings and social television analytics, a supplementary big data approach to audience measurement. In doing so, this work provides insight into the types of content that perform well under a social television analytics regime based on audience engagement relative to those that succeed under the traditional ratings regime based on audience exposure. As such, this article addresses the changes and challenges fostered by an era of big data and contributes both to the management scholarship on media industries, as well as to the audience behavior literature by expanding upon the relationship between television ratings, media management, and the implications for cultural production.