How viewership metrics are calculated on Periscope
Periscope counts live and replay viewers towards overall viewership metrics for each broadcast. This number provides insight into the size of a broadcaster’s audience across a number of platforms and entry points.
Periscope and Twitter apps on iOS and Android
In the Periscope and Twitter iOS and Android apps, a viewer is counted as soon as they press play or join a broadcast full screen. Autoplay viewers are counted after a threshold of 3 seconds, which is consistent with how autoplay is tracked at Twitter. For less than 90 days, the threshold for autoplay viewership on Periscope for iOS and Periscope for Android was 2 seconds, but has since been updated to be consistent with our other platforms. Autoplay viewership of broadcasts on Twitter for iOS and Twitter for Android has always been counted using a 3-second threshold. Learn more about how autoplay is tracked on Twitter.
Periscope.tv
On the Periscope.tv website, a viewer is counted only when they tap into an individual broadcast full screen. Viewers are not counted while scrolling through our featured and standard channels or browsing on the homepage.
Twitter web and embeds
Viewers on Twitter web and Periscope web embeds are tracked as “public” viewers. This means they do not show up as identifiable logged in accounts, even though they count towards the total viewer count. Viewers are counted on autoplay videos once a broadcast has been playing for 3 seconds as is consistent with Twitter autoplays. For all non-autoplay broadcasts, we track viewership when someone clicks into the broadcast.
Periscope for Apple TV, Twitter for Apple TV, and Twitter for Android TV
Viewers are counted when someone clicks into a broadcast full screen on their TV through any of these apps.
On all of our platforms, we take a variety of measures into account to track when someone stops viewing the broadcast, including unexpected app crashes, interruptions from phones or battery loss, to keep the concurrency count as accurate as possible.
As with any other software, bugs may cause unintended behavior from time to time. If you notice this, we encourage you to report it to us (screenshots or example links are most useful) so that we can investigate.
What is autoplay?
Autoplay refers to broadcasts that automatically play in the timeline on Twitter, or on Periscope in the Watch Tab or the Global Feed. You have the option to turn off autoplay in your iOS or Android settings.