i-Ads and AMS

The new digital television audience measurement system (AMS), subscription TV’s alternative to OzTAM was promised for July when it was announced at the ASTRA conference in March.

The product developed by Multi Channel Network (MCn) is supposed to be named before its July launch.

Today MCn chief executive Anthony Fitzgerald writes in the Australian newspaper that it is already offering interactive, targeted ads via the Foxtel “red button.”

“Viewers that press the red button on a 30-second interactive commercial to view extended content do so because they are genuinely interested in the product,” he writes.

“The next stage of enhanced television advertising is wildly exciting.

“MCN is investigating technology with BSkyB in Britain that will allow us to run substitutional advertising to houses with iQ and MyStar digital video recorders.

“Project Canoe chief executive David Verklin says that in the very near future we will ‘be putting dog food commercials only in front of people who own dogs.'”

Fitzgerald says that MCN will have the capability to dynamically insert different TVCs into the same content across multiple platforms and channels.

In 10,000 homes every single button press of the remote will be saved in the set-top box, the data captured and reported daily. The new subscription television system will measure personal digital recorder viewing including time-shifted viewing, and it will also measure responses to interactive advertising. The research will provide subscription TV platforms, channels and their advertising clients with data which complements the existing currency measurements from OzTAM and RegTAM.

Free-to-air networks have been also invited to join in the technology.

“Undoubtedly they will soon take the first steps along this path by running interactive advertising on the Foxtel platform,” says Fitzgerald.

Source: The Australian