Abstract:

Venezuela is currently facing curtailed freedom of speech, human rights violations, shortages of essential goods, and ongoing public unrest is under debate, so independent and objective information is sought. Many believe that local media are under continued State harassment, making it a challenge for the remaining private media to creatively connect to a politically divided audience. Our purpose is to show how innovative audience measurement techniques helped Venezuela's second largest TV Channel to successfully navigate this environment, while maintaining audience engagement. Semantic analysis, gathered from viewers' opinions and social media content, combined with "hard" audience measurement analytics, delivered the "soft" insights for gauging engagement within a context of a turbulent society.