Parrot Analytics puts a number on content’s cultural value

The Future. In the absence of streamers providing hard viewership data, Parrot Analytics has filled the gap by measuring everything from social media engagement to piracy rates to find out how much demand people have for a movie or show. While critics argue Parrot’s products may favor titles that appeal to the very online Twitter (sorry, X) crowd, its ability to measure their cultural footprint may eventually become a vital tool for future Hollywood contract negotiations.

Demand data
Parrot Analytics is really in demand right now.

• Parrot aggregates “social conversation, streams, search traffic, and other signals” to determine “a holistic view of audiences’ engagement with and interest in a TV show.”
• The firm’s subscriptions start at $99 per month (far below that of rival Nielsen) to appeal to individuals and smaller companies.
• Still, Parrot’s star has ascended so high that clients now include Disney, Prime Video, CAA, and Legendary.
• It plans on expanding its measurement system to sports teams, intellectual property, video games, and brands in the near future.

Parrot was pushed into the spotlight this summer after SAG-AFTRA proposed in its contract negotiations that the firm be used to determine streaming viewership for an updated residual system. The studios (again, many who are clients of Parrot) rejected the idea, claiming Parrot’s metrics don’t account for hard viewership data (which they refuse to share in a truly meaningful way). Talk about a complicated relationship.

Maybe a solution to the problem (and to reaching a consensus to end the dual strikes) is to create a new equation that takes into account Parrot, Nielsen, and firms like Antenna and Samba TV to calculate an overall score. 

We hope some high-priced entertainment lawyers are already working on it…