CSM Media Research, China’s leader in audience measurement, announced to form strategic alliance with Sina (weibo.com) to develop a new suite of tools to support planning and analytics for the Chinese TV industry in early January this year.

Bringing together social TV data from Weibo and the audience research expertise of CSM Media Research, the tools will enable broadcasters to assess programmes and series, plan programme promotions more effectively and assist media buyers and sellers to integrate social data more comprehensively into the TV component of their media mix.

The following is the excerpt of People's Daily Online's written interview with Benjamin Xiao, Deputy Managing Director of CSM Media Research.

People’s Daily Online: What made CSM Media Research join hands with Sina and launched the Weibo TV Ratings Indexes?

Benjamin Xiao: Different from 20 years ago, content is no longer consumed primarily on televisions, the rise of new media platforms such as PCs, tablets and mobile devices has further extent how people view content. Social media platforms have also made it easier for people to share their thoughts, opinions and recommendations of their favorite topics such as TV programs, movies, games to the general public. Therefore, presently, when TV networks evaluate performance of their TV programs, in addition to analyze TV, we are required to assess PCs, mobiles, tablets and social platform performances. They are critical for providing a complete and holistic evaluation. CSM and Sina Weibo launched Weibo TV Ratings Indexes, aim at providing a global standard for China’s media industry to measure TV-related social conversations on Weibo. The new suites of products will provide quantitative support to enhance their programs’ evaluation for broadcasters and other media stakeholders.

People’s Daily Online: How do you evaluate studies on TV programmes on social media in China?

Benjamin Xiao: Audiences discuss TV shows on social media has become increasing popular in recent years, more networks and advertisers had found that phenomenon such as live tweeting and post-tweets can influence audiences outside of the loyal circle of fans to gravitate towards a show not normally watch on a regular basis. Thus, social media companies begin to work with media research companies to find insights from data, such as recent cooperative alliances in the US and European markets in 2013. While in China, we have been working with social data since 2013, in the form of custom reports, we want to productize to be able to utilize regularly by networks and other stakeholders as a supplement to TV ratings.

People’s Daily Online: What are the usage of the Weibo TV Ratings Indexes？

Benjamin Xiao: Weibo TV Ratings Indexes can help TV networks and content producers to understand audiences’ preferences and sentiments towards channels, programs, program topics, actors, hosts and participants. Thus, be able to adopt and evolve their programs based on these recommendations to generate how programs are produced, distributed and consumed by audiences.