Adobe's Digital Index says more than three quarters of the new TV programs are averaging less than 100 mentions a day on social media and only five programs out of the dozens of new launches are generating what the experts call "social buzz".

In high school report card terms, that's roughly an F.

The five shows which are making noise are Constantine, Gotham, The Flash, How To Get Away With Murder and NCIS: New Orleans.

All five shows scored positive sentiment scores above 60 per cent, according to the index.

Intriguingly, two of the five (The Flash and NCIS: New Orleans) are spin-offs, three of the five (Constantine, Gotham and The Flash) have connections to comic books and three of the five (Constantine, Gotham and The Flash) are owned by one studio, Warner Bros.

Of the five, Gotham, an origin story about the Batman universe's iconic character Commissioner Gordon, is generating the strongest international buzz.

Almost half the "geotagged" buzz around the show originates from locations outside of the United States, the report says.

The fact that three of the five shows have comic book connections did not escape notice.

They are, Gaffney says, "riding on the coat tails of Hollywood and its love affair with superhero movies."

The one high-scoring show with no connection to either a comic book or a pre-existing show is How to Get Away with Murder, a legal drama about a law professor whose class becomes involved in a murder. It stars double Oscar nominee Viola Davis.

The relatively low results for television overall sit in stark contrast to the film industry where, according to the report, even unprofitable films generate more than 10 times the social "buzz" that the new TV lineup is generating.

The answer, says ADI principal analyst Tamara Gaffney, is that TV studios and networks "haven't figured out how to create social interest for their new shows."

America's television industry generally launches new programming in the autumn ("fall") season. Typically that involves more than a dozen new programs on each of the major networks and scores more on cable.

Among the new lineup are the political drama Madam Secretary (CBS), the crime thrillers Stalker (CBS), Gracepoint (Fox) and The Missing (Starz), the sitcoms Marry Me (NBC), Selfie and Black-ish (ABC) and Mulaney (Fox) and two English-language adaptations of Spanish-language shows, the comedy Jane The Virgin (The CW) and the crime series The Mysteries of Laura (NBC).

Gaffney said the report also illustrated the extent to which traditional TV marketing - broadcasting "promo" spots on the network which is launching the show - are losing their impact.

For that we can blame the new television paradigm and the migration of viewers to non-traditional sources of TV, such as iTunes and streaming sites like Netflix and Hulu.

"Because TV watching habits have changed so dramatically, that's not going to work anymore," she said.

"There's more binge viewing and much more digital viewing, which means that people are not seeing these network ads much anymore."

Among returning programs, the procedural crime series Criminal Minds is the top scorer, followed by Big Bang Theory, CSI, NCIS and Modern Family.

Using the returning series as a measure, the social buzz scores in the survey more or less reflect the commercial performance of the shows; those five programs are permanent fixtures in the US ratings top 10.

Those numbers also make it difficult to dismiss the Adobe Digital Index as simply a measure of social media popularity and nothing more.

Noticeably absent, the report says, is Two And A Half Men.

The report also noted that NCIS star Mark Harmon has the highest percent of positive buzz across social media channels, while Modern Family star Sofia Vergara had the highest percent of negative buzz.

The poor result for Vergara, the report said, followed her appearance on a pedestal at the 66th annual Emmy Awards, which drew wide criticism and accusations of sexism.

ADI bases its analysis on social media mentions on several platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, Reddit, Dailymotion, Flickr, Tumblr Wordpress and YouTube.