PwC Removes Nielsen And OzTAM Numbers In Updated Facebook Report

Melbourne, Australia - July 30, 2018: PwC headquarters building in Melbourne Victoria Australia

After two weeks of controversy, Facebook and PwC have re-released the My Screen: Video Consumption in Australia report, with a couple of absentees.

In case you missed it, Facebook was forced to “pause” distribution of the original report after it was alleged the findings contained significant miscalculations, such as comparing weekly TV data to monthly Facebook numbers.

The drama escalated when the author of the report Ben Shepherd, who is now chief media officer at CHE Proximity, defended the research and claimed Nielsen “deserve greater scrutiny” for its role.

Shepherd’s former colleagues at PwC have removed all Nielsen data from the updated report, which sets out “to provide marketers with a perspective into video use in Australia and how to reach consumers via this medium”.

“We have removed Nielsen data because we were unable to use the data set that talked to total reach as opposed to video only,” states the current report.

It also explains OzTAM numbers have been removed “as we do not have permission to use their data for this report”.

The new version of the report also reduces the stated reach of digital platforms Facebook, YouTube and Instagram “largely because we are referring to a seven day time period versus monthly”.

PwC maintains the original intention of the report still stands – to provide marketers with clarity around Australian video consumption.

“With so many options for today’s marketer, this research provides a comprehensive view of video consumption and the different roles various channels play,” said PwC CMO Advisory partner Justin Papps.

“The majority of the findings in this second report remain consistent with the first, with some revisions to the industry reach analysis which now incorporates data sourced from Roy Morgan.”

It also includes PwC Consumer Research conducted for the report.

Among other things, the fallout from the report has highlighted problems the media industry faces around accurately measuring content consumption.

Australian Association of National Advertisers CEO John Broome said: “We are not yet living in the ideal world where we have an independent measurement of unduplicated audience consumption of all forms of video let alone all media.

“So we recognise the challenges of using the available sources in the meantime. It’s a difficult challenge and we recognise the weight of effort undertaken by PwC and Facebook in this instance.

“We do this because we know that marketers want to efficiently and effectively optimise their communications mix and given no one channel can provide a complete answer for any marketer, it’s important to continually inform marketers of their choices.”

In terms of the report’s findings, the five highest reaching video platforms in Australia remain consistent (Free to Air TV, Facebook, YouTube, Netflix and Instagram, in that order).

The original report concluded these five platforms each reach more than half of the population of Australians over 14. This has now been reduced to one third, based on Roy Morgan data.

In bad news for broadcast Commercial TV networks, PwC finds “BVOD (broadcast video on demand) is not a genuine competitor to SVOD (subscription video on demand) in terms of audience”.

It also reveals the power of Netflix in the current environment, with three of the top four “most watched” video content genres available on the platform, while a wide range of content is the primary driver of consumer preference.

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