Fox's Twitter TV Experiment Tweets Its Way to Epic Failure
When Fox revealed its plan to broadcast reruns of Fringe and Glee with a live Twitter feed overlay, I said they had to be really really careful. But Fox didn't listen. From user comments online it looks like the experiment earned itself a big FAIL.
Context & Ripple Effects
Fox's Twitter overlay is the latest entry in a two-year run of broadcasters trying to put tweets on air, dating back to the networks' early 'Twittering' experiments covered by the Wall Street Journal in July 2007. The track record so far is rough: Oprah's much-hyped Twitter moment in April 2009 turned into an on-air stumble of its own, with her big Twitter show failing to produce a tweet.
The stakes for Twitter are real even if the format flops: the service had reached more than 44.5 million users worldwide as of June 2009 and was just beginning to roll out paid commercial accounts aimed at turning media buzz into revenue. A visible failure on a Fox broadcast hands skeptics an easy case study right as Twitter needs corporate customers to believe the platform delivers audiences.
First-order effects
- Viewers reacting online panned Fox's live tweet feed over Fringe and Glee reruns, meaning the network's flagship young-skewing shows carried an overlay its audience actively resented rather than engaged with.
- Twitter gets a high-profile television showcase that backfired publicly, awkward timing for a company mid-rollout on commercial accounts built around proving value to media and brand buyers.
Second-order effects
- Other networks weighing similar overlays now have a cautionary example on a major broadcaster, likely slowing copycat deals until someone shows a format viewers don't mute.
- The failure pushes the burden onto Twitter and its partners to demonstrate that show-related conversation drives tune-in or engagement somewhere measurable — otherwise the commercial-account pitch loses its strongest media narrative.
Third-order effects
- If on-screen tweet overlays keep failing while show conversation thrives inside Twitter itself, broadcasters face a structural choice between forcing the feed into the picture and building companion experiences alongside it — a split between broadcast control and audience-owned conversation.
- Repeated celebrity-and-network stumbles (Oprah in April, Fox now) shape how the industry prices Twitter integration: as experimental marketing spend rather than core distribution, which caps what platforms like Twitter can charge media partners.
The trend: Broadcasters trying to weld Twitter onto the TV screen keep colliding with audiences who want to control their own conversation, pushing social TV toward companion experiences instead of on-screen overlays.