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From OzTAM:

We’re pleased to let you know that from Monday 29th January, OzTAM will introduce two new daily VOZ website reports that provide Total TV* Overnight and 7-day reach totals in addition to the top program rankings.

These new reports provide additional detail on the millions of Australians watching broadcast TV and BVOD and replace the former VOZ website daily and weekly program ranking reports.

Reach is the sum of unique (individual) viewers who have watched at least one minute of a program or daypart on broadcast TV (or 15 sec on BVOD) across its total duration.

This means an individual is only counted once if they have viewed at least one minute (broadcast TV) and/or 15 seconds (BVOD) of the program.

Reach differs to audience, which is the sum of all individuals watching each minute of a program/daypart divided by the duration of the program/daypart to give an average minute audience across the duration of the event being analysed.

The new VOZ Total TV reports feature:

Total TV Overnight Top 30 programs

• Free-to-Air programs ranked on National Total TV reach.
• Total TV National and BVOD audience thousands for the top 30 programs
• Overnight National cumulative reach of Total TV, Broadcast TV and BVOD is broken out at top of the report.
• Demographics: Total Ppl, Ppl 25-54, Ppl 16-39, Grocery Shoppers (18+)

Total TV Consolidated 7 Top 30 programs

• Free-to Air programs ranked on National Total TV reach for the most recent Consolidated 7-day.
• Total TV National and BVOD audience thousands for the top 30 programs over the most recent Consolidated 7-day period
• 7-day National cumulative reach of Total TV, Broadcast TV and BVOD is broken out at top of the report.
• Demographics: Total Ppl, Ppl 25-54, Ppl 16-39, Grocery Shoppers (18+)

***Total TV includes National Broadcast TV and National BVOD.

The existing Total TV Weekly Cumulative Reach report will continue in its current format and will be delivered on Tuesdays.

Concurrently, OzTAM will cease production of the daily Overnight and Consolidated viewing reports, including the Daily Total Program Ranking, currently emailed to journalists with data licence agreements each morning, which we expect will simplify reporting practices and reduce potential for confusion between the various datasets.

The enhanced VOZ website reports offer a clearer picture of the audience consuming broadcaster content across all platforms and devices on a daily and weekly basis, and highlight the continued growth of BVOD viewing.

The new VOZ website reports will also be published at the earlier time of approximately 11:35am – an hour earlier than the current release schedule of approximately12:35pm – as we continue to optimise the daily release of VOZ data ahead of the transition to currency in 2024.

FAQs

NEW VOZ WEBSITE PROGRAM REACH RANKING REPORTS – JANUARY 2024

Background

On Monday 29th January, OzTAM will introduce two new daily VOZ website reports that provide Total TV* Overnight and 7-day reach totals in addition to the top program rankings.

These new reports provide additional detail on the millions of Australians watching broadcast TV and BVOD and replace the former VOZ website daily and weekly program ranking reports.

The new VOZ Total TV reports feature:

Total TV Overnight Top 30 programs

  • Free-to-Air programs ranked on National Total TV reach.

  • Total TV National and BVOD audience thousands for the top 30 programs

  • Overnight National cumulative reach of Total TV, Broadcast TV and BVOD is broken out at top of the report.

  • Demographics: Total Ppl, Ppl 25-54, Ppl 16-39, Grocery Shoppers (18+)

Total TV Consolidated 7 Top 30 programs

  • Free-to Air programs ranked on National Total TV reach for the most recent Consolidated 7-day.

  • Total TV National and BVOD audience thousands for the top 30 programs over the most recent Consolidated 7-day period

  • 7-day National cumulative reach of Total TV, Broadcast TV and BVOD is broken out at top of the report.

  • Demographics: Total Ppl, Ppl 25-54, Ppl 16-39, Grocery Shoppers (18+)

*Total TV includes National Broadcast TV and National BVOD.

The existing Total TV Weekly Cumulative Reach report will continue in its current format and will be delivered on Tuesdays.

Concurrently, OzTAM will cease production of the daily Overnight and Consolidated viewing reports, including the Daily Total Program Ranking, currently emailed to journalists with data licence agreements each morning, which we expect will simplify reporting practices and reduce potential for confusion between the various datasets.

The enhanced VOZ website reports offer a clearer picture of the audience consuming broadcaster content across all platforms and devices on a daily and weekly basis and highlight the continued growth of BVOD viewing.

The new VOZ website reports will also be published at the earlier time of approximately 11:35am – an hour earlier than the current release schedule of approximately12:35pm – as we continue to optimise the daily release of VOZ data ahead of the transition to currency in 2024.

The VOZ website reports guidelines here.

How do reach and audience figures differ?

  • Reach is the sum of unique (individual) viewers who have watched at least one minute of a program or daypart on broadcast TV (or 15 sec on BVOD) across its total duration. This means an individual is only counted once if they have viewed at least one minute (broadcast TV) and/or 15 seconds (BVOD) of the program.

  • Reach differs to audience, which is the sum of all individuals watching each minute of a program/daypart divided by the duration of the program/daypart to give an average minute audience across the duration of the event being analysed.

Does VOZ data include BVOD co-viewing?

  • Yes, it includes BVOD co-viewing. OzTAM is constantly reviewing the methodology using latest available data signals and reflective of consumer behavioural changes.

Why are the daily Overnight TAM and STV reports and the daily rolling FTA C7 TPR distributed to journalists ceasing?

  • Understanding the true picture of Total TV performance requires a Total TV view.

  • Total TV reach figures provide the most accurate picture of all-screen program consumption and campaign performance over time.

  • The move to Total TV reach-based reports supports the industry’s move towards

  • VOZ as currency.

  • Ceasing production of the multiple separate reports currently emailed to journalists with data licence agreements in favour of the new VOZ Total TV website reports will streamline and simplify reporting practices and minimise confusion between the various datasets.

Why aren’t historical audience reports on the OzTAM and VOZ websites any longer?

To avoid confusion and not-like-for-like comparisons:

  • Reach and audience-based reporting are different calculations

  • Also, viewing aggregation rules - notably for ’spill viewing’ at a national level - have been updated in the latest VOZ Total TV website reports. Refer to following question for TAM vs VOZ differences.

How do we report correctly from the new reach-based VOZ reports?

Here are some sample sentences for how to accurately report from the new VOZ data:

“On Monday 15th January 2024, 12.329 million people nationally were reached by broadcaster content either via broadcast linear TV or BVOD.”

“10.475 million people nationally watched at least 1 minute of broadcast TV on the 15th January 2024.”

“Across the 7 days from 8th January to 14th January, 6.691 million people nationally watched at least 15 seconds of BVOD.”

“The program with the highest Overnight Total TV reach on 15th January was 2024 AUSTRALIAN OPEN D2- NIGHT with 2.424 million people.”

“Seven News had a reach of 2.243 million people across broadcast TV and BVOD nationally last night.” “In the Consolidated 7 rankings for 8th January 2023, HOME AND AWAY on Seven ranked 5th with a

national Total TV reach of 1.393 million people, a national Total TV audience of 936,000 and 174,000 for

national BVOD.”

“Gladiators on 10 launched with a national Total TV reach of 1.349 million people and an average Total

TV audience of 556,000.”

All OzTAM VOZ data should be clearly sourced to ensure clarity of reporting. Refer to the notes page of the report PDFs for relevant information.

Is it possible to still compare this year’s program performance based on VOZ data with last/previous year’s TAM data?

Adoption of the new VOZ market reports represents a break in the time series (“trend break”) for broadcast TV, limiting the ability to make like for like comparisons.

VOZ uses a distinct design and methodology to provide true national, de-duplicated audience and reach estimates of all-screen broadcast TV and BVOD viewing. Some differences exist between VOZ and the existing OzTAM Metro and Regional TAM ratings services for reasons including:

  • VOZ includes the new regional market, Rest of Australia*, which is not included in TAM.

  • VOZ unifies metro and regional to a national picture, accommodating viewing in the ‘overlap’ market areas (spill viewing**).

  • The VOZ database is produced to remove duplication of viewing that can arise by bringing together two measurement services to a TV set i.e., TAM and VPM.

The produced VOZ database also allows for the de-duplicated count of unique viewers meaning a person exposed many times to broadcaster content and advertising across all screens is counted as just one viewer reached in the VOZ Total TV reach estimates.

* Rest of Australia: Combined TV markets Darwin, Remote Central + Mt Isa, Griffith, Mildura, Spencer Gulf (Port Pirie/Broken Hill) and Riverland/Mt Gambier.

**FTA Broadcast TV ‘spill’ relates to viewing to broadcast channels transmitted from a market that is outside of the market being analysed. There are some metropolitan and regional markets that overlap. The viewing by people in an overlap area will contribute to the market that the broadcast originates from. The viewing in a non-overlap area to a broadcast from an adjacent market (‘spill viewing’) is excluded from that market. The National Total TV results in the VOZ reports includes ‘spill’ viewing that was otherwise excluded from local markets.

Why is broadcast TV based on a viewing threshold of 1-minute and BVOD on 15- seconds for reach results?

  • 1-minute reach is the decades long industry accepted standard for broadcast TV reach.

  • 15-second reach for BVOD represents the unique count of people who have watched at least 15 seconds of the program. This count provides a television reach-like number.

  • 15 seconds also reflects the fact that online broadcast video is premium content which enjoys high viewer engagement rates.

  • The 15-second BVOD standard reinforces the Australian television industry’s commitment to a measurement metric whereby to ‘count’ the content must be of sufficient duration to capture the consumer’s attention.