Today marks the first time the Australian media industry will report its numbers on a national basis and be inclusive of BVOD numbers. Australia is now the first and only market in the world to offer daily next-day overnight all-screen Total TV viewing data.
It also signals the end of the Five City Metro numbers as the industry standard for a show’s performance since forever. Now, industry reporters are sent a completely new set of numbers with two new measurements: cumulative reach and audience.
Reach is the sum of unique (individual) viewers who have watched at least one minute of a program or day-part across its total duration. This means an individual is only counted once if they have viewed at least one minute (broadcast TV) or 15 seconds (BVOD) of the program.
Reach differs to audience, which is the sum of all individuals watching each minute of a program/day-part divided by the duration of the program/day-part to give an average minute audience across the duration of the event being analysed.
Perhaps more newsworthy is what’s missing from the new reports. Apart from the Five City Metro reports, which have been constantly trending down at alarming rates since streaming and YouTube became giant consumers of people’s attention, OzTAM is no longer providing a break down on a TV stations total audience share. So no longer can we say Seven/Nine/Ten won the night.
Historical comparisons are now much harder and rely on individual broadcasters to supply journalists with like for like numbers. Given their tendency to guild their respective lilies, we look forward to some confusing and dare we say perhaps less than truthful times ahead!
Some industry pundits have likened the move to VOZ as akin to publishers abandoning circulation numbers in favour of readership as the beginning of the end.
Anyway, enough with the explainers and disclaimers! Here is B&T’s inaugural VOZ Total TV Reports.
It comes as no surprise that the Australian Open final eclipsed all comers with a giant national reach of 4,767,000 and a total TV audience of 2,122,000. The BVOD audience, which is included in both the reach and total TV numbers was 314,000.
Thanks to a welcome and spirited victory in the final test match of the summer by a young West Indian cricket team, that program enjoyed a national reach of 2,207,000 and and audience of 1,359,000. With the Test Match finishing early, the Women’s T20 between Australia and South Africa was the beneficiary becoming the 11th most watched show of the evening with a reach of 1,111,000 and an audience of 251,000.
According to the new VOZ measurements, some 13,187,000 Australians watched TV on Sunday night including 11,443,000 on broadcast and 3,116,000 on BVOD.
