• by Wayne Friedman , May 19, 2014

Looking to give more weight to its Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings service, the measurement company will release demographic data.

The data will be delivered overall for programming related tweets across 250 U.S. networks -- age and gender of those who tweet (the authors) and those who read and see tweets will be revealed. Those age breaks -- similar to television programing -- include: 13-17, 18-24, 25-34, 35-54, 55-plus, and 18-49.

Early results show that Twitter TV authors for the programs ranged from 88% female to 92% male. The program skewing oldest counted 85% of its Twitter TV authors above the age of 35, while the youngest-skewing program had 98% of its Twitter TV authors below 35.

The people who see TV-related tweets outnumbered Twitter TV authors by a 50 to 1 margin.

Looking specifically at some programming genres, the Twitter TV authors for sports events skewed 79% male on average; reality programs skewed 65% female. Reality programs also had a younger mix of Twitter TV authors: 75% below the age of 35. Comedy programs shows 63% of authors below 35.

More examples: When looking at broadcast drama series tweets, only 14% of the authors were male, with 39% of males seeing those tweets.

Nielsen says its initial analysis was across 273 broadcast and cable program episodes.

Nielsen says a key takeover from this research will be how Twitter will help TV networks and advertisers to reach audiences beyond their core demos.