NBC’s hit show “The Voice” aired its finale this week, naming Javier Colon the show’s first ever winner. ”The Voice” incorporated social media into its strategy from the beginning, building a Twitter presence into the broadcast with hashtag #thevoice, and included live tweets on air during the show. We used Social Radar to analyze conversations online.

The Voice vs. American Idol

We measured conversations around upstart program “The Voice” vs. television behemoth “American Idol.” Thanks to a strong social media presence, “The Voice” generated more chatter than American Idol on its April 26 premiere, even as competition tightened on “Idol.”

Javier Colon vs. Scotty McCreery

We also measured chatter around “American Idol” winner Scotty McCreery vs. “The Voice” winner Javier Colon. McCreery generated more chatter following his “Idol” win.

So it appears that “The Voice” did a great job of generating conversations around the show overall, rather than individual contestants.

NBC is already planning to broadcast an episode of “The Voice” following the Super Bowl in February 2012. Will it help save the fledgling network? Will we see more shows incorporating Twitter into broadcasts to boost audience participation?

George W. Bush is back in the spotlight this week, doing press around the release of his memoir The Decider Decades. The book is an autobiography focused around “the most consequential decisions” of his presidency and his personal life.

As the New York Times put it, there was something jarring, fascinating and disarming about seeing George W. Bush on screen again during an hourlong NBC special interview with Matt Lauer on Monday. Two years ago he left office with two wars raging, an economy in free fall, and the lowest approval ratings of any modern president.

Chatter around George W. Bush is 65% negative this week.

One of the biggest topics of conversation around George W. Bush this week was Kanye West.

Bush told Matt Lauer during the interview Monday that the “most disgusting moment” of his presidency came when rap star Kanye West claimed that the president didn’t care about black people in response to the hurricane Katrina crisis.

Kanye attempted to respond and empathize to the former President’s comments on the Today Show, but claimed via Twitter that NBC ambushed him with video footage and prompted an emotional response.

Sentiment around Mr. West, who has a new CD coming out this month, is currently 60% positive.

Conan O’Brien’s new show Conan premiers on TBS tonight. We ran analysis of conversations online, and found that currently Conan is generating 800% more buzz than his adversary Jay Leno, who replaced him on NBC’s Tonight Show after only a few months.

Capitalizing on the buzz, O’Brien will appear in a series of American Express commercials – following in the footsteps of other AmEx spokes people Jerry Seinfeld, Tiny Fey, Ellen DeGeneres and Martin Scorsese.

Conan’s new late night show will go head-to-head with Leno’s Tonight Show on NBC tonight. Will the increased Conan chatter lead to higher ratings?

Earlier this week NBC unleashed some strong arm on Conan O’Brien, threatening to push The Tonight Show to a later time slot following The Jay Leno Show in an effort to pump up Leno views. This rearrangement upset many Conan fans and the repercussions are being felt in social media.

In the past week, posts referencing the two late-night stars has nearly tripled, with huge bursts regarding Conan peaked today when he announced his refusal to play nice with NBC.

Based on this sentiment analysis of both hosts, we can see that Leno produces higher negative sentiment amongst users. Diving into categories, people are a-Tweet voicing their concerns.

With 88% of buzz hailing from Twitter, it’s no mystery that Conan O’Brien is the crowd favorite. Related hashtags (#TeamConan) are infiltrating my feed and I feel like I’m reliving the whole “Twilight Team Edward/Jacob” craze that took over a month ago. Do you think NBC execs will finally smarten up and start giving the people what they want?

Nielsen ratings have long been the measure of TV success. For the week ending March 22, ABC, CBS and Fox dominated the Nielsen top 20. Not a single NBC or CW show made the list. But does that tell the whole story? Thanks to websites like hulu, viewers are consuming information online in demand.

We measured web chatter for the Nielsen top 20 during the same week, and added several popular NBC and CW shows to our research as well. The results were surprising. Half of our top 10 is comprised of shows on NBC or CW.

1. American Idol (Fox)
2. Gossip Girl (CW)
3. Saturday Night Live (NBC)
4. Dancing with the Stars (ABC)
5. Desparate Housewives (ABC)
6. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)
7. Heroes (NBC)
8. 60 Minutes (CBS)
9. The Office (NBC)
10. 30 Rock (NBC)