Tops of 2014: Social TV

If social media is the new water cooler, U.S. viewers certainly had their share of “let’s discuss” moments in 2014. From someone kind of getting devoured by an anaconda to the U.S. Men’s World Cup soccer squad trying to make a go of it to, well, zombies, there’s no shortage of Twitter activity during programs—and even in the days after.

This year, given the myriad social TV conversations taking place 24/7, Nielsen ranked the top series, special event telecasts and top sports events across Twitter. Nielsen also revealed the most-Tweeted-about minute in each category. After all, those OMG occasions often act as calls to action, prompting viewers to take to Twitter, and reminding fans who may have missed an episode to catch up in the days to come.

For the second year in a row, AMC had a show that topped our series list. The Walking Dead, in all its undead glory, had an average of nearly 5 million people seeing at least one Tweet about each new episode of the program. There was clearly a lot to talk about, as people sent an average of 576,000 Tweets about each episode.