American Music Awards on ABC Dominate the Week on Twitter

ABC’s 2015 American Music Awards was, by far, the top televised event on Twitter for the week of Nov. 16. According to Nielsen, the Nov. 16 event totaled 5.331 million tweets written by 935,000 unique authors, which were seen by a unique audience of 10.16 million people (generating 229.11 million Twitter TV impressions). The AMAs were hosted by Jennifer Lopez. Some of the night’s big winners included Nicki Minaj, One Direction, Ariana Grande, Luke Bryan, and Carrie Underwood. Among the notable AMA moments were a romantic kiss between singers Meghan Trainor and Charlie Puth, Alanis Morissette and Demi Lovato singing “You Oughta Know” to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the release of Alanis’ classic album “Jagged Little Pill”, and Justin Bieber’s medley performance to close the show, including dancing through a storm of rain on-stage. Comparatively from the year-ago American Music Awards, the event was off a mere one percent in generated tweets and had a decline of just 6 percent in unique Twitter audience.

Another awards show also reached the top ten among the week’s series and specials: Univision’s Nov. 19 telecast of the Latin Grammy Awards (1.87 million Unique Audience/177,000 tweets/56,000 unique authors/5.71 million impressions). Comparatively from the year-ago Latin Grammys, it was up 4 percent in tweets but down 17 percent in unique Twitter audience.

The fall finales of ABC’s trio of Thursday night Shonda Rhimes dramas (TGIT) were also hits on social media: “Grey’s Anatomy” (2.02 million Unique Audience 101,000 tweets/46,000 unique authors/5.90 million impressions), “Scandal” (1.92 million Unique Audience 212,000 tweets/52,000 unique authors/14.02 million impressions), and “How to Get Away With Murder” (1.76 million Unique Audience/225,000 tweets/54,000 unique authors/12.87 million impressions).

There were six NFL football games that reached the top ten sports entries of the week but it was a college football game that topped all sports events: Michigan State’s 17-14 victory over Ohio State on ABC on Nov. 21, spoiling the defending national champion’s undefeated season. According to Nielsen, it totaled 409,000 tweets written by 196,000 unique authors, which were seen by a unique audience of 5.85 million people (generating 59.23 million Twitter TV impressions).

Most-Tweeted Minutes from the Top 3 Series and Specials:

• 27,500 Tweets were sent at 8:33pm EST on Sunday, 11/22 about 2015 American Music Awards after One Direction received the award for Best Pop Rock Duo/Group.
• 18,700 Tweets were sent at 9:02pm EST on Sunday, 11/22 about The Walking Dead after a flashback revealed that Glenn (Steven Yeun) had survived a Zombie attack.
• 2,600 Tweets were sent at 9:00pm EST on Thursday, 11/19 about Grey’s Anatomy following the closing of the winter season finale.

Most-Tweeted Minutes from the Top 3 Sports Events:

• 19,100 Tweets were sent at 6:47pm EST on Saturday, 11/21 about Michigan State at Ohio State after Michigan State defeated Ohio State.
• 3,100 Tweets were sent at 2:57pm EST on Sunday, 11/22 about Washington Redskins at Carolina Panthers after Panthers’ receiver, Devin Funchess, scored a touchdown.
• 8,900 Tweets were sent at 11:28pm EST on Monday, 11/16 about Houston Texans at Cincinnati Bengals after the Houston Texans defeated the Cincinnati Bengals.

According to Nielsen: Activity metrics (Unique Authors and Tweets) are a measure of relevant Twitter activity from three hours before, during and three hours after an episode’s initial broadcast, local time. Reach metrics (Unique Audience and Impressions) measure the audience of relevant Tweets ascribed to an episode from when the Tweets are sent until the end of the broadcast day at 5am. For the series and specials list, the data includes new/live primetime and late fringe episodes only and excludes sports events. Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings are only available for English-language U.S. Broadcast and Cable Networks.

Unique Audience – The total number of distinct Twitter accounts accruing at least one impression of one or more different Tweets ascribed to a TV episode.

Source: Nielsen