EXCLUSIVE: OzTAM has given the green light for its TV ratings system to enter a multiplatform world by the end of the year, with plans for a new system that measure online viewing and multitasking.
The move could position Australia as a world leader in audience measurement along with the US and UK, which are also beginning similar trials.
Smart phones and tablets are on the agenda for the broadcaster-controlled ratings agency, OzTAM, but not just yet.
Priority for the expanded TV ratings service is first going to online areas like catch-up TV and iTunes along with reporting on the level of viewer multi-tasking across media - a 2009 US study from Nielsen said the number of people who used the TV and internet simultaneously at least once a month was 57%.
The revamped OzTAM board, which includes the new ACCC-approved chairman and former Austereo CEO Michael Anderson, signed off on the project at its last board meeting.
OzTAM CEO Doug Peiffer confirmed the multiscreen ratings initiative to AdNews. It represents a major departure from the more conservative line OzTAM has taken in the past to track and report on the splintering viewing options for TV programs - and the alternative use of TV screens in the home for gaming and IP services.What might surprise many, however, is how rock solid traditional TV viewing still is.
Peiffer said home TV sets still accounted for an estimated “98-99%” of all TV viewing in Australia despite raging interest in catch-up TV services and online video.
Although hundreds of millions of video streams are made every month, the number of TV hours Australians watch on the traditional TV set has not declined.
News of OzTam’s expansion follows a mobile video report released last week from Nielsen in the US showing Americans were now watching an average of 4.2 hours of video per month on their mobile phones, the majority of it being network TV content.
Online video consumption, however, was still dominated by short form clips served by the likes of YouTube.Peiffer said he did not expect any data to come from the new “stand alone” dual screen TV ratings pilot until the end of the year and there remained “huge challenges” in how to report the figures.
He said discussions would take place with media buyers and advertisers for reporting things like Nine Network News.
Nine’s online TV news service could not be classified as the 6pm news bulletin so questions were still to be answered in how those additional audiences were allocated.
“If the [TV and online] content is identical, that’s easy,” Peiffer said. “If someone bought broadcast ads in Glee but not online or they did both, we have to work out how to report all that.
"How do media owners want to sell and how are media buyers wanting to buy? Measuring all this and putting it all back together in a meaningful way is usually harder than capturing the data.”
OzTAM will create a trial panel separate to current TV ratings homes for the multiscreen research. The initial 100 homes in the pilot panel will have the same TV people meters as the primary base but will have a PC software meter loaded onto each home computer, requiring each household member to log-in when watching TV and using their PC.
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