SBS boss: Oztam ratings are ‘very unscientific’ and underestimate size of NITV audience

michael ebeidThe boss of SBS has described the official ratings system for television OzTam as “very unscientific” and “not accurate”, and argued it significantly under represents the audiences the multicultural public broadcaster achieves on channels such as indigenous focused channels such as NITV.

Michael Ebeid, managing director of SBS, told Mumbrella after last Friday’s 2015 Upfront event that he did not believe Oztam was accurately reflecting NITV’s audience, which has previously posted a 0.0 per cent audience share in the official TV ratings since its launch two years ago.

“The thing you have to understand with the way our ratings system works is very unscientific,” Ebeid told Mumbrrella. “For example, there are no measurement boxes anywhere in the Northern Territory (NT) so any viewer in the NT is not counted anywhere in our measurement system.”

Ebeid went on to argue that Oztam disadvantaged the broadcaster but that there was little that could be done to address the situation.

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