ESPN Tops List of Most Social TV Networks

NEW YORK: ESPN dominated the November ranking of the most socially engaged TV networks in the U.S., with ABC coming in second, according to the social media benchmarking and audience analysis firm Shareablee.

The ranking includes all television shows and the main network brand accounts under their respective networks. It reflects a total of 530.3 million social actions across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and YouTube. Engagement for TV networks last month decreased 2 percent compared to October, due to a 5 percent decline on Facebook.

ESPN ranked number one on Facebook with 34.2 million actions, Twitter with 13.2 million actions, and Instagram with 71.7 million actions. ABC had the most social amplification (shares and retweets) of any TV network with 8.3 million shares and retweets on Facebook and Twitter. NBC was number one on YouTube with 1.9 million actions excluding views, and also ranked number one on Tumblr. Fox News led the news category with 31.2 million actions and also captured over 6 billion Facebook impressions, the most of any TV network during the month of November. FXX saw the largest growth, at 286 percent, thanks to the network’s It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s Facebook promotion of its upcoming season.

The top five TV shows by engagement for November were SportsCenter on ESPN (69.2 million actions), The Walking Dead on AMC (14.4 million actions), Pretty Little Liars on ABC Family (8.5 million actions), The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on NBC (7.1 million actions) and the Today Show on NBC (7.1 million actions).

In overall network rankings, the top five were ESPN, ABC, NBC, Univision and Fox News. Telemundo, E!, MTV, FOX and CBS round out the top ten.