This research explores how television viewers’ online program engagement (OPE)—engagement in social media conversations about television programs—relates to audience size during ads in those programs. We leverage a multisource dataset of 8417 ad instances, volume and deviation measures of OPE activity (program-related Twitter mentions), and audience size during ads. We show that increases in OPE volume and positive deviations from the episode’s average level of OPE before an ad relate to higher ad audience size. To explain, we argue that OPE reflects viewers’ program involvement which attenuates their channel-changing behavior during ads. Positive OPE deviations moreover relate to higher ad audience sizes most strongly for earlier ads in a break. Our results help television networks and advertisers strategically determine ad placements for increased ad audience size by highlighting social episodes (characterized by high OPE volume) and social moments (characterized by positive OPE deviations) as attractive advertising environments.

这项研究探索了电视观众的在线节目参与度（OPE），即有关电视节目的社交媒体对话中的参与度，与这些节目中的广告投放期间的受众规模之间的关系。我们利用了8417个广告实例的多源数据集，OPE活动的数量和偏差度量（与程序相关的Twitter提及）以及广告期间的受众人数。我们发现，广告投放前OPE量的增加以及与情节的平均OPE水平的正偏差与更高的广告受众规模有关。解释一下，我们认为OPE反映了观众对节目的参与，这削弱了他们在广告期间改变频道的行为。此外，积极的OPE偏差与广告中的较高受众群体规模有关，而对于休息时间较早的广告，这种影响最为明显。