OzTam’s VOZ shows viewing across platforms increases over 28 days
During an end of year ThinkTV presentation OzTam CEO Doug Peiffer shared an update on how the Virtual Australia, or VOZ reporting system, is delivering greater detail for media buyers and advertisers on the behaviour shifts of Australian viewers.
“If you think of what VOZ really is, it’s Oztam and Regional Tam put together,” he explained. “We can now have a look at Total Television reach on a national level.”
OzTam now has 45 VOZ-eligible agencies and affiliates who have access to VOZ data. To assist agencies in adapting to the new system, OzTam has been subsidising agencies’ access during the on-boarding period, which is roughly around three months. The measurement platform launched in July 2021.
“Our Third Party Software Supplier (TPSS) has been working on new tools, working on the database, and going out to the clients and customising what the agencies want to see, which is a weekly dashboard that the clients have access to, and will bring up relevant information the clients would like to focus on,” he said.
Data released by OzTam showed that TV reaches over 79% of Australians weekly, with BVOD viewing adding over 1.7 million viewers exclusively each week. According to the data, reach builds as linear TV audiences add BVOD to their viewing patterns.
“COVID has changed how people have been viewing TV, especially on the BVOD side of things,” said Peiffer. “I think one of the most interesting segments that we are seeing is how people are actually consuming TV across devices. BVOD is growing at around 20% year-on-year, and accounts for 6.5% of broadcast TV content viewed in Australia, linear TV is still very much the biggest player, with about 93.5%. If you look at the share of BVOD, 70% is actually coming from connected TVs.”
According to OzTam, TV reaches around 20 million viewers every week, “when you combine the linear and BVOD together, which is what advertisers want,” Peiffer explained.
He added: “The other percentage is consumers just snacking and catching up on their favourite TV programs. There is a difference between how people consume linear TV and how they consume BVOD. On linear TV people tend to flick through channels a lot more and surf, whereas on BVOD people don’t jump around. If someone watches content on BVOD they watch the entire program.”
Based on a 28 day period, BVOD usage in conjunction with linear increased by 36%, according to OzTam’s data.
Source: OzTam [click to enlarge]
“As lockdowns eased, we saw the younger generation turning to BVOD to catch-up on their favourite shows, as they wanted to still go out and socialise with friends, but wanted to make sure they got to watch their show, so turned to BVOD,” he said.
OzTAM and Regional TAM together have more than 8,000 people-metered panel homes. A little under 3,000 of those homes have also been equipped with streaming TV meters that have platform-level SVOD measurement capability.
“It doesn’t give us exactly what they’re watching, but it lets us know how much of it, and how many hours of TV they’re watching and on what streaming service they’re watching the content on,” explained Peiffer.
From the data received so far via the boxes, OzTam can see a growth in the volume of SVOD usage, and longer viewing session times on platforms such as YouTube.
OzTam is looking to collaborate with Ipsos, which will be the new provider for the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) in 2022, on data collated to get further detailed data on the streaming habits of Australians in the new year.
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