Think TV lays out ‘the facts’ around video consumption as industry awaits re-release of PwC’s My Screen Report
As the industry awaits the re-release of the thus far bungled PwC and Facebook My Screen report, TV lobbying body Think TV has come out swinging, armed with what it says are the actual facts about how Australian consumers are engaging with video content.
The My Screen report – commissioned by Facebook to provide marketers with “a balanced and independent view of the video market” – has been pulled from circulation after questions mounted over its use of Nielsen data, and whether it actually presented a single source of truth on how and where people are spending their time consuming content.
Portrate: Let’s debate the facts
The report’s author Ben Shepherd has since defended the report’s integrity – contending it was upfront about the limitations around the data sets it used, and explaining its failure to include any Connected TV data when talking about broadcast video on demand (BVOD) consumption.
Seems like our industry has forgotten their common sense. Kim makes some very valid points. While Facebook Watch is helping redeem their credibility a little, marketers need to be thinking of cleverer and more creative ways to talk to their consumers on social media.
– 4.547m people are measured as viewing video on Facebook on a desktop device but no video viewing is measured on mobile or tablets. 17m people are measured as viewing text across mobile, tablet and desktop. Fair enough to say that those 17m are watching video as well, it is just not measured.
– Advertising on TV is 100% ‘viewable’ but 50% of adbreaks are not viewed and 25% of a 15″ ad is viewed to completion as people are looking at their mobiles.
Dear Kim,
Do you have any similar information for YouTube viewing that will show how large it is in Australia?
Regards,
Larry and Sergei
You can stop digging now Kim because an article on a rival website showed the YouTube figures from the official digital currency. They are actually 17,209,050 viewers who spend an average of 21h9min each month.
That’s pretty large isn’t it? Compares pretty well to 7 or 9 as a single channel I’ll bet (it doesn’t seem fair to compare all of TV to a single digital entity).
But that’s exactly what FB were doing.
Incorrectly.
Not to let Facebook off the hook but in their defence they gave the job of pulling this report together to PWC.
It’s PWC who screwed up what each of their data sources was measuring and what it didn’t cover. Someone like John Grono would have done a 10x better job because he knows the various data sets.
First, Think TV was discussing Facebook video usage – not Youtube, so I suspect that is why the relevant data was cited,
But, as we are taking about Youtube it is doing very well with 21 hrs a month across 17m users. (Mind you, that is with a 0-second threshold to qualify as a user, but the time is pretty accurate.) That is about 42 minutes a day. And that is spread across the 3+billion videos loaded onto Youtube.
So the average AU Youtube daily viewing is about 1.5x a typical TV programme duration. Yet combined the TV stations are about 3x Youtube in duration. And that is spread across 4 ABC, 5 Seven, 4 Nine, 3 Ten, 5 SBS and around 150 Foxtel channels. Let’s call it 200 as a round number.
As a media buyer, the chances of my client’s ad being seen on Youtube is wayyyyyy slimmer than being seen on a TV station – even their secondary channels.
On TV you need to splay it around and work around metrics that are essentially derivatives of probabilities of being seen.
On YT you target a specific audience, so the volume of content is irrelevant. That’s the point, it isn’t TV If you then lay over skippable format and only paying for views, well…..
In the end, they both work and work better together. The key question is relative investment, rather than an either/or.
This stuff being thrown into the mix as “facts”?? Why are these reports that ThinkTV loves to say comes from an academic not published in a peer reviewed journal? What have they got to hide?
Is it because the methodology is flawed? As someone that works in choice modelling- YES IT IS.
Please, talk about an industry body seeing someone getting burned for using data badly and thinking “hey cool, let’s jump in that fire too”… FFS
“This is a debate about how effective Facebook video advertising is as a platform for marketers,”
Is it? None of the vitriol to date from networks etc has referred to effectiveness at all. It’s concentrated on semantics and a reach figure. ThinkTV taking the high road as per usual …
Kim’s facts must stand for Federation of Commercial Television Station because none of these are facts.
Truth is TV works.
Truth is all video works
The issue is measurement and how cost effective each iteration really is…….
The media agency need to take control of modern measurement systems to calculate media mix and combined reach. Otherwise
Any research will seem bias.
Wouldn’t the advertisers i.e. AANA make a better source for controlling this measurement? Not all spends go through media agencies.
Great idea (especially with regard to ‘direct’ advertising).
Except AANA doesn’t pay a cent and expects media companies and agencies to pick up the tab.
Agreed ‘How about the advertisers?’ This may be the only comment on this topic that was worth writing. All measurement metrics are floored and the fact that so much weight is given to them is one reason why the industry is stuffed. The only results that matter are those that are measured by an advertiser and the only value that can be justified is the value the advertiser puts on the medium. All viewership should be scrapped and pricing built on supply and demand. A media business can set pricing, fluctuate pricing etc. but there should be no benchmark, only the willingness of the market to use the medium based on results that it generated. This would break the agency model, all advertisers would book direct and companies would have effective media and marketing teams that would only be responsible for the results of the company they are employed by. The next inquiry into media agency practices might help expedite this process.
“Biased”
The tv networks have hard Nielsen digital panel for their own press for ages. The assertion it’s text is outrageous.
This is hypocrisy at the highest levels.
https://www.nineentertainmentco.com.au/2018/10/15/15/20/nine-looks-to-take-9now-to-the-next-level
Years ago, I heard a wise old research sage says this – I wrote it down and remind myself of it every time: “There is no ‘truth’ in research. There is only validity, bias, sample size, economics, and judgment.”
As David Byrne sang, “same as it ever was”.
Sure, let’s benchmark around the device that now sees less than 10% of Facebook’s impressions…
So why doesn’t Facebook do what the other video-heavy websites such as 7plus, 9Now, 10Play, SBS On Demand, YouTube etc. and have an industry measurable tagged video player?
Looks like Kim and her Think TV crew got the A Current Affair team to develop these research “facts”.
Text vs video: Facebook doesn’t have a ‘text or video’ view option. Given how much Facebook content is video, I would say it’s a reasonable assumption that any time someone is in Facebook, they’ll see a video.
So is the issue really about how many people are viewing videos on Facebook, YouTube or connected TVs? Or is it more about how long they watch videos for on these platforms, or the chances of a particular video being seen by the audience?
OzTam and Think TV – now there’s your problem. Owned and operated by FTA networks in Australia calling analytics (outside their network) into question.
I think any independent measurement free of ownership would scare the bejesus out of Aus TV industry and how shambolic it is.
It boggles the mind really – all these vested interests shouting how their info is fact.
Clearly the FB / PWC research will be biased towards FB
Clearly the Think TV research will be biased towards TV given they & oztam are owed by the networks
cross screen measurement is becoming the age old issue i this industry, everyone talks about it in their own bubble – , all you need to do is look at the fact Voz will only take into account the catch up services and not included YT!
This needs an unbiased industry body to fulfill this task. Agencies can’t do it because they would not want to share it. a single media channel can’t do it because it will always be biased towards them.
Isn’t this really Neilsons job?
One problem I find whenever ThinkTV speaks is how they assert that everyone watching TV is glued to it through the adbreaks. They never acknowledge second screening, turning and talking to someone, walking out of the room. They would be more credible if they talked to the limitations and problems as well as the strengths.
Oh my god this is soooooooo boring!
“As already established this week, data shows Facebook’s desktop video has an audience of 4.547 million. There may be upwards of 17 million reading text content on the platform but there is a considerably smaller percentage of people watching video.”
This ‘fact’ neglects the actual fact that the Nielsen video figure doesn’t measure mobile consumption for Facebook. If over 17 million people use Facebook, do we really believe that less than five have been reached by video? Has Kim used Facebook?
Viewability argument is legitimately boring. Buy completed views, use a third party viewability verification tool, create content that is engaging, don’t be foolish enough to believe everyone who watches TV watches ads.
All of this said, surely we can agree that effectiveness is key. Perhaps brands will get a better idea of effectiveness once this industry gets a grip and starts to work together to improve measurement. Brands can’t measure effectiveness without the industry first solving channel measurement. Assume the blocker here is media cos not playing ball because they’re scared of what numbers will say. Self interest at its best.
Where’s the always vocal Mark Ritson in this debate? Normally he’s the first to criticise Facebook metrics.