‘Pretty Little Liars’ season 4B premiere sets Twitter record; but what does it mean?

Clearly, people who watch “Pretty Little Liars” love to also talk about it online … but what does this really mean when it comes to the success of a show? That is something that is still rather hard to pinpoint.

Let’s start first of all what what has to be considered the big news for Aria, Spencer, and the rest of the gang. The show on Thursday night drew 1.3 million tweets from around 700,000 sources, which makes this the most-tweeted premiere ever since this sort of data was actually tracked. That’s a huge accomplishment, especially when you consider that overall, close to 3.2 million people were watching. That is around one of every 4.5 people, if there was a way for half a person to really exist. By comparison, if “NCIS” had this sort of Twitter traffic with its show, it would have over 4 million contributors sending out close to 8 million tweets over the course of an hour.

The problem that comes in when you are speaking about a show like “Pretty Little Liars” is that there really is not much evidence out there that Twitter activity actually leads to more ratings or success. It just means that this is a platform that people sit around and discuss the show on. Back when “Lost” was in its heyday, much of that happened over the course of message boards. The major thing that it does is build a greater sense of community among its fans.

For those interested in demo ratings, the winter premiere drew a 1.2 in the 18-49 demographic. This is a pretty solid number; while it is down from the 1.4 it scored for the Halloween special late last year, it is still one of the highest-rated original series on cable. Not only that, but it does very well in those young demographics that ABC Family really craves.

What do you think of the numbers the show has posted? Share below.