With so many startups trying to become viewers’ go-to app for second-screen social-TV action on the sofa, consolidation is inevitable. Witness last night’s news that US startup Viggle is buying rival GetGlue for $25m in cash plus 48.3m shares.

“The resulting combined company will be the dominant force in the exploding social TV market,” claims the bullish press release announcing the deal, which goes on to explain that GetGlue has 3.2m registered users, while Viggle has 1.2m.

Dominant force? No. If there are dominant forces in the social TV world, it’s Twitter and Facebook, whose apps are still being used by many more people to chat about the TV they’re watching.

That’s not to say Viggle and GetGlue aren’t innovative, interesting startups, but with 70k and 370k monthly active Facebook-connected users respectively according to AppData, they’re still a niche in the grand scheme of things – as is every other social TV startup.

TechCrunch has dug deeper, too, discovering that the deal relies on Viggle completing a planned $60m funding round. Meanwhile, Viggle’s latest financials report reveals that in the year to 30 June 2012 its revenues were $1.7m, while its net losses were $96.5m.