Sharing the viewing experience through second screens

Despite the ever expanding forms of digital entertainment and the emergence of consumer recording facilities, allowing viewers to time shift their TV viewing habits, there are still certain TV shows and events that create an audience desire to be part of a mass shared experience. In the past direct inter-audience interaction of such events has been restricted to either a shared location at the time of broadcast or later discussions amongst friends and colleagues often described as 'water cooler moments'. With the advent of online social networks that facilitate status updates these moments can be instantly shared in real-time using mobile phone creating a second screen for interaction with TV. In this paper we investigate the emerging role of mobile phones as the facilitator of second screen for TV. This is achieved through the analysis of tweets for a highly popular UK TV show the X Factor and comparing tweets from this show with other shows from a different format. The results highlight the rich source of information that can be extracted in real-time and how audiences are creating their own parallel narrative of the show through Twitter. This interaction has enormous potential for broadcasters and producers both in terms of reinvigorating live TV viewing and creating new forms of audience interaction.