New ratings data measures Live streams

OzTAM has announced it will publish new ratings data to indicate what Australians are Live streaming from Free to Air broadcasters and Foxtel.

The numbers are separate to those ranked for Timeshifted or Catch-Up for services such as iview, Tenplay etc.

The first weekly Live Video Player Measurement (VPM) Report on its website, shows data for Sunday 29 Jan – Saturday 4 Feb 2017. A new report will be published each Tuesday morning.

So far Sport and News dominates Live streaming. The Australian Open dominates in the first report, with the Men’s Final attracted 360,000 individual Live streams. FOX Sports Rugby League pulled 88,000 streams and its Cricket drew 52,000.

OzTAM’s CEO Doug Peiffer said: “OzTAM’s Live VPM Report is the latest enhancement in our Video Player Measurement service.

“It demonstrates differences in how people consume online catch up TV and now live-streamed broadcast content.

“Sport and news tend to dominate Live VPM, as the content is more ‘perishable’. Catch up is more about watching at a time and manner of the viewer’s choosing; drama and entertainment are usually the most watched catch up programs.

“Both are important in understanding how people engage with TV content, and the opportunity to live stream or catch up keeps audiences close to their favourite programs.”

OzTAM’s VPM reporting service typically captures around 30-50 million minutes of VPM content, on average, a day. Of that, catch up comprises 25-35 million minutes, and live streaming 5-15 million minutes.

Overall, viewing of online broadcast content – including catch up and live streaming – currently accounts for approximately 1 to 2 per cent of all broadcast content viewed each week in total. However VPM can represent a sizeable portion of a program episode’s total audience, similar to the way some broadcast programs see significant audience increases from time-shifted viewing.

About OzTAM’s VPM reports
OzTAM’s VPM reports are posted at http://www.oztam.com.au/reportvpm.aspx. The rolling 7- day and 28-day catch up VPM reports, and weekly Live VPM reports, carry the ‘7’, ‘28’ and ‘L’ VPM symbols, respectively [refer to attached news release for symbols].

Top program episode rankings are based on ‘VPM Ratings’: the average number of connected devices that have played a participating broadcaster’s online content across a program’s duration.

VPM Ratings are calculated in a similar way to TV program average audiences, though for connected devices rather than people in OzTAM’s VPM Report.

In addition to the VPM reports on OzTAM’s website broadcasters are also receiving data on their own VPM content, which they can use for their respective reporting purposes.

About OzTAM’s Video Player Measurement (VPM) reporting service
OzTAM’s Video Player Measurement (VPM) Report provides Australia’s first official figures for viewing of internet-delivered TV content. Launched in February 2016, the VPM Report is separate and complementary to OzTAM TV ratings.

OzTAM’s VPM service captures minute-by-minute data on participating broadcasters’ TV content played to connected devices such as tablets, smartphones, smart TVs, games consoles and PCs/laptops.

Participating broadcasters (at launch stage ABC, Seven Network, Nine Network, Network Ten, SBS and Foxtel) implement OzTAM’s software development kit, which includes code developed by OzTAM. Each broadcaster’s video player is coded across all operating systems and devices. The code attaches a broadcaster-provided unique media identifier (ID) to every piece of live or on demand content within a participating broadcaster’s video player library.

This means OzTAM can correctly attribute every such minute of this content played to individual connected devices, whatever those devices are (e.g. smart TV, smartphone, tablet, desktop/laptop, games console), the platform or operating system used (e.g. Android, iOS, web, games console) and wherever those devices may be.

OzTAM’s VPM reporting service draws on three years of development and testing and is a world-leading approach. The system has also been independently reviewed by PwC and independently audited by Milton Data. Please see the Video Player Measurement Report section of the OzTAM website, http://www.oztam.com.au/vpm.aspx, for further detail.