Social media might not have been around when Australia got its first taste of Hey! Hey! It's Saturday, but that didn't stop the show's fans taking to Twitter and Facebook like a Plucka Duck to water this week.

Tens of thousands of tweets were posted as Daryl Somers and friends took to the air for part one of their reunion special, with comments from viewers still flooding in this morning at a rate of around one every five seconds.

A wave of activity from foreign members of the networking site accounted for a large percentage of today's activity, helping to keep the conversation in the top 10 trending topics of the site.

The show's Facebook page also enjoyed a swell in membership with numbers currently sitting at 230,805 and rising.

"Watching the Twitter feed while the show was on-air last night was extraordinary," said Nine spokesperson Christine Neate. "It was basically a live commentary of the show run by the viewers."

In comparison, rival show Celebrity MasterChef on Channel Ten attracted some positive Twitter activity as it went to air, but failed to sustain the same momentum.

According to tweetvolume.com, the celebrity version of the cooking show attracted a total of 1010 tweets while Hey! Hey! garnered 47,300. MasterChef Australia's official Facebook page had today a total of 47,021 fans.

The Hey! Hey! reunion attracted 2.1 million viewers nationally compared to 1.3 million for MasterChef.

Contrary to the perception that TV's days are numbered in the internet age, Dr Jason Sternberg, a media lecturer from QUT, said audiences were now using the net to enhance their television viewing.

"In lieu of having any real interactive television system in Australia at present, Twitter, Facebook and even SMS technologies really, when used well, do supplement the TV viewing experience," he said.

"Savvy TV producers are now also cottoning onto the idea that these social media sites offer an alternative advertising revenue source and that it pays to maintain an active presence."

Dr Sternberg said the fact Hey! Hey! It's Saturday returned to the air was partly due to the show's popularity online, with active Facebook groups and Twitter discussions demonstrating demand and a dedicated audience.

Earlier this year, Nielsen NetView, a leading internet media and market research company, released a study demonstrating that the largest age group active on Twitter was aged 35-49 years old.

"Historically new technology has always been associated with young people but the reality is that this social media is mainstream technology now, they're embedded and they're not that sophisticated," Dr Sternberg said.

"The fact that a nostalgic and pretty conservative show like Hey! Hey! did so well is testament to the fact that its audience has embraced those technologies."

-Katherine Feeney