The whole industry should be worried about OzTAM’s digital ratings backflip
OzTAM’s U-turn over the way its new digital ratings can be reported by the TV networks undermines its authority and sets a worrying precedent for the wider industry argues Nic Christensen.
It’s amazing the difference five days can make.
After years of planning, last Monday the Australian TV Networks launched world-leading digital ratings metric the Video Player Measurment (VPM), which measured, nationally, the average number of devices viewing full episodes of catch-up TV content.
No longer would media buyers have to rely on unreliable and incomparable streaming and catch-up numbers from the networks.
Agreed, it’s genuinely troubling, and frankly the parallels with the behaviour of the banks and ratings agencies shown in The Big Short movie are stark – it’s not quite fraud, it’s more a case of everyone desperately trying not to blink in order to preserve their increasingly disconnected version of reality.
“A bigger number is better to sell my diminishing-value wares” thought Kelly, the media sales exec. I’ll just say “it’s undercounting” like that Pfeiffer bloke said and hope no-one asks about relevant audiences or engagement.
On the other side of the room, Kim the media buyer thought “If this moron believes these muddled numbers, maybe my client will too. Seriously, they’re bound to be our most valuable audience segment if they’re watching playback TV. Aren’t they? Or the dog staring at MKR while I go shopping.”
In a related note, isn’t Peppa Pig the most played-back TV in Australia? I heard it in a social scenario so would be interested to know if accurate.
ps – I can conceive of no sane scenario where WIN have a hope of succeeding in their “old man yells at cloud” legal action against Nine.
It might work for some spin and elevate a few programs. But really its a clumsy embarrassing move by an industry under threat. Unfortunately some clients and agencies may be taken in by the spin either through Ignorance or to suit their own agendas. Until there is true cross media cross device measurement, not owned by the TV networks, none of that can be counted. No procurement person i know will fall for it!!