Nielsen weighs in on PwC’s My Screen report as questions over data usage mount
Facebook commissioned PwC to research and write a report to provide it, and the market, with “a balanced and independent view of the video market”. The report was released, but then pulled from distribution. After questions over its whereabouts, and the TV industry slamming its methodology and use of data, PwC said the report’s distribution needed to be paused as “a very small subset of industry-sourced data” was validated. The report’s author, Ben Shepherd, then defended the report, and hit out at data-provider Nielsen for selling data to the market, but not standing behind its usage.
That’s the story so far, and now Nielsen has had its say on the debacle which has caused rumblings in the industry and will see the report re-issued.
How do Australians consume video? Well, we’re not quite sure yet
Mumbrella understands a key issue with the report from Nielsen’s perspective was on page nine in which Nielsen Digital Panel Data was used. This data subset looks at Australians accessing text content, rather than video consumption. Given the My Screen report attempted to uncover how Australians are spending their time consuming video content, Nielsen believes its Digital Content Ratings – which can be broken out into text consumption and video formats – should have been used.
To be fair to Nielsen, there is a slight difference between 17.4m facebook users (text) and 4.5m facebook users (using video)…
Note that the 4.5m video number is just desktop and does not include any mobile or tablet users. Where as the 17.4m includes all devices.
PWC stuff up in how they publish Nielsen data – Nielsen alert them to it after the reports release and it is subsequently taken down. Then Ben Shephard, who has since left PWC, rags on Nielsen saying they don’t stand behind their data (For the crime of correcting something that is quite important, as Agency Guy points out) …
Yikes…
Note that the 4.5m video number is just desktop and does not include any mobile or tablet users. Where as the 17.4m includes all devices.
Is the Facebook 4.5m for desktop only vs YouTubes 17m for mobile tablet and desktop? Or am I reading the chart that’s supposed to clear things up incorrectly?
Thats correct. Not confusing at all !
Only Nielsen would consider releasing those two charts, full of wonky comparisons of some sites that are fully tagged and others that aren’t, as “clearing the air”.
To be fair, Nielsen (nor any other research organisation) can compel publishers of text and/or video to tag or deploy SDKs to allow usage tracking.
Have a word to those that aren’t playing the full game.
By showing which devices are included, Neilsen are being transparent. Something that is lacking from many others. Charts that only showed sites that had exact matches only appeals to those who want to game the results and prevent comparisons.
What does text consumption mean on some of these sites? e.g. apart from titles and FAQs there’s no real written content to be “consumed” on platforms like Kayo or Stan.
Simples!
Text uses letters, numbers etc. Video uses a video player or similar – no letters and numbers, but picture and sound.
Mind you, the text numbers for Kayo, Stan, Foxtel are way higher that the video numbers – but that could be people not navigating to a video page/player.
That’s what I’m getting at – the numbers imply roughly 90% of people are just reading stuff on Stan, Kayo, etc. without watching anything. Does anyone believe that? No. The fact Nieslen supplied these charts to clear things up only highlights how much of a joke this data is.
Roy Morgan data is not panel-based, it’s based on face-to-face interviews on weekends. More concerning – we have to stoop to face-to-face interviews on weekends to measure video streaming behaviour across devices……
To be fair, Morgan does have a tag-based system. Their core business is face-to-face sampling.
Pretty sure the commission and writing of this report will be covered in an episode of the new season of Utopia.
Is anyone ever actually going to use this report as a credible source now anyway?
No media planner uses Roy Morgan as a channel measurement source, and haven’t since the old days of magazine readership. It’s a useful tool, but not for hard viewing data. So if the report is released with Roy Morgan stats only, it will be very low value indeed.