Beginning at 2:30 p.m. and running until 11:00 p.m., the Discovery Communications cable network will air all eight episodes of the Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant series. In primetime (8:00pm), the channel will also feature tweets from viewers who use the hashtag #AnIdiotAbroad at the bottom of the screen.
An Idiot Abroad is the most successful show in the channel's history. TV Guide notes that the show has increased the network's performance in its time frame by 191% in the key 18 to 49 age demographic. In the show, Gervais and Merchant (The Office, Extras) send their friend Karl Pilkington on a trip around the world. Gervais has described Pilkington as a "real-life Homer Simpson" and the description is apt. The program is laugh-out-loud funny and irreverent.
Discovery Communications tells us that they are going to use the Twitter promotion with An Idiot Abroad to see if there is a definitive correlation between on-air Twitter promotions and Twitter activity. Likewise, the company will be looking to see what impact -- if any -- the promotion has on ratings and audience retention.
More television networks are actively embracing social media as a way to drive promotion and audience engagement. We look forward to seeing the results from the Science Channel's experiment.