War of words between free and pay TV Tim Addington
A war of words has broken out between free and pay TV over ratings with the former claiming advertisers deserve more than the “smoke and mirrors dished up by pay TV”.
In the latest in a series of spats between the two groups, Free TV Australia poured scorn on claims made by Astra – the group that represents subscription TV – that its audiences were superior to advertisers.
Julie Flynn, CEO at Free TV said: “What matters most to an advertisers is: who saw my ad? Unless you’ve bought every spot on every pay TV channel, their aggregated share and weekly reach figures are meaningless.
“It’s no wonder they’re reluctant to follow the free to air networks in being measured by AC Nielsen AdEx; the majority of commercial spots on pay TV would rate a zero.
“Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for any substantiation of their oft-bandied claims of ‘superior viewer engagement’ or ‘quality audience’.
“We call on the pay TV industry to provide advertisers and industry commentators the same level of detail and transparency when reporting their program and channel performance as the free-to-air networks do.”
Free TV also released a list of what it calls ‘Pay TV rating myths’, which include claims that pay TV often chooses to report figures from within subscription homes only.
In response, Astra’s executive director Debra Richards blasted free TV saying the existence of pay TV was now hurting the free market.
She said: “Who said that free-to-air ratings reports are the right measure in a changing media landscape?
“The facts are that every time we connect a new subscriber to Foxtel, Austar and Optus they spend more than 60% of their television viewing time watching subscription TV. That’s 60% of their time not spent viewing free-to-air television and it is clearly starting to bite.”
She went on: “With the decline of free-to-air total viewing, television audiences are only beings maintained through the increase in growth in subscription television and the greater total viewing of television that occurs when subscription TV is connected to the home.
“More than 750 advertisers can’t be wrong. Subscription television is clearly delivering on what advertisers really want –
A medium that will make viewers sit up and take notice and make cash registers ring,” she added.
