Analysis of the ratings system

OzTAM makes up their own calendar that is different to the Gregorian calendar!!

That is because there are 52 weeks and 1 day in most years. OzTAM reporting is based on whole weeks so the year must start on a Sunday and end on a Saturday and be a number of whole weeks. For OzTAM, the 2015 year started on 28 December 2014.

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Huge data drop from OzTAM this morning so all the ratings topics should be up to date. There were a few anomalies detected and some missing consolidated numbers (marked as such). Please advise if anything else missing.

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It has occured to me that programs with an MA15+ classification don’t rate very high at all, both main channel and multi-channels?

Yet all the key demos even factor those over 15 anyway.

It still must be the perception of an MA15+ program, that scares people off, makes families switch off, etc?

I’d love to know a way to find the highest rating MA15+ program, say the last year, if it could be done. @TV.Cynic

Game of Thrones has been Foxtel’s highest rating program ever, and it’s rated MA15+.

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Excellent point.

And go figure, it’s on subscription television!

I think the main issues is MA programs aren’t shown at 8:30. Could be a different story if networks took advantage of the new rules.

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Ch 7 have been with “Ramsays Kitchen Nightmares”.

But you’re right.

what does that mean?

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I was getting at how you would think it would be more common / easier for an MA15+ program to rate higher on free-to-air television.

But no, you never see one in the Top 20 lists for FTA.

But Game of Thrones is always at the top of STV with hundreds of thousands!

With most shows returning in the week starting 29 January, why don’t the networks request OzTam start the ratings year earlier in future? This has been happening for a few years now and the networks have the power to change ratings measurement, so why waste these early weeks by not including them in the official ratings?

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On its website Nine’s claims a total consolidated audience by adding together metro, regional and ‘Central’. Presumably Central is both SA markets, Darwin and the eastern/central remote area? I have also seen Seven include Central in total audience figures in their annual report. It seems that RegionalTAM do surveys of those markets overwise the networks wouldn’t have the figures.

Perhaps the networks don’t want to, but deliberately start the new programming a bit early to get viewers on board, some who may miss the first week or so before properly settling back into post-holidays viewing habits?

They usually rate strongly straight out of the gates.

Personally, I think that the networks would be better off just shifting forward the start of the ratings season a couple of weeks. Even if that means a mid-November end to the ratings year, then just do it!

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Apart from the PR people at the networks (and people like us who read their releases), I’m not sure who takes any serious notice of the official ratings period anymore.

Ratings are produced to sell adverting and are already recorded for every day of the year. Especially with high rating summer sport there are plenty of opportunities for good advertising opportunities outside the 40 week ratings period.

Networks are said to work out rates with advertisers based on the official rating period. This would be important for programs like news that run every week and are affected by holidays. That’s because, the ratings over the Christmas - New Year break would be less accurate with so many on holidays and not counted by OzTAM even though they are still watching TV. If you take the Gold Coast where over 2 million domestic tourists holiday each year, none of these people count as watching Brisbane TV and at the same time are lost to their home TV markets.

I think that any experienced advertiser would not be interested in “official” ratings and would place and pay for their spots regardless of whether a program was shown before or after 12 February.

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Or maybe ratings periods aren’t that important. Which is again something I have been saying for a long time with the December period being the most valuable time of the year, which surprisingly isn’t during ratings period.

Personally I think it should be sweeps. Advertisers would find that much more beneficial and it would give them a good idea of knowing when to advertiser with certain networks. I would suggest November-December would have to be a sweep considering it is the Christmas period.

I’ve never really that familiar with how the “sweep” thing works but isn’t it just a system where certain weeks are ramped up by the networks and then they take their foot off the pedal the rest of the time? Isn’t that just a condensed method of what we have now?

I cant say I am an expert and I am not exactly saying it works in America or it is exactly how it should be applied in Australia. What I am suggesting is that businesses mut be curious to the audience they can grab at certain times of the year, christmas surely being one of them. So perhaps a 10 x 4 week sweeps could keep networks more on their toes and not only that but give businesses a better idea when to advertise and who to advertise with. Everyone would want to advertise with ten over Christmas and many with seven early February.

I would think OzTAM would be collecting that data as it is now, even at December/Christmas. I’m sure they’d have analytics that can show trends for certain time periods etc. They’d have mountains of data for advertisers that we never get a glimpse of.