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Seven, Nine shun 15 minute “Winner Announcement” minimums

Exclusive: TEN is the only commercial network to abide by an OzTAM agreement for minimum durations when coding grand finals.

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2014-10-21_2357EXCLUSIVE: Seven and Nine are disregarding an agreement with OzTAM to run Winner Announcement segments for a minimum of 15 minutes, in a bid to land higher ratings.

TEN is the only network sticking to the agreement in data revealed by TV Tonight.

Aside from sport, the year’s highest audiences have been for “Winner Announced” segments of reality shows including The Block and My Kitchen Rules.

One Programmer previously called the practice for shorter duration segments “a complete scam.”

In January OzTAM CEO Doug Peiffer told TV Tonight, “Hopefully we have agreement this year that they will continue to hold to fifteen minute averages across those programmes.

“In principle everyone said they would adhere to it, but as you know at OzTAM we take the logs from the networks and that’s what we run the service off. So hopefully everyone will follow suit.

“We’ll see when we get to the first Reality programme.”

Ten months later the results are not encouraging.

29/04/2014 My Kitchen Rules-Winner Announced 11:39
6/07/2014 House Rules-Winner Announced 10:00
21/07/2014 The Voice Grand Final -Winner Announced 9:59
28/07/2014 Masterchef Australia – The Winner Announced 22:34
2/10/2014 The Bachelor Australia – The Final Decision 17:37
12/10/2014 The Block Glasshouse -Winner Announced 10:00
20/10/2014 The X Factor -Winner Announced 10:10

An OzTAM spokesperson last week said the 15 minute minimum was not a “rule” and indicated timing was up to individual networks. It provides minute by minute data to clients.

“OzTAM is sympathetic to the issues some media buyers have raised and has repeatedly tried to bring people together on what is a sensible time coding framework for big event programs,” they said.

“15 minutes would seem appropriate, but again it is up to the networks how they code.”

“Top program rankings are only one measure of performance, and the television buying ecosystem in fact works on the basis of quarter hour average audience files.

“Currently OzTAM takes network program logs as supplied. If OzTAM didn’t they would have to pay a third-party data collection service to do so. That would be costly, and that additional cost would need to be met by clients.

“So it’s up to the networks whether or not they change their practices.”

A Seven source said 10 minutes was the minimum with the exception of the Melbourne Cup.

Victor Corones from MagnaGlobal recently told TV Tonight, “OzTAM is beholden to their stakeholders but it would be nice if they could forge ahead and say ‘Right, these are the rules.’

“It’s self-regulation. It doesn’t stop them from releasing a programme format that’s 5 minutes.”

6 Responses

  1. OzTam needs to go … it is a joke and has never truly reflected the viewing habits of our nation!

    As for the “winner announcement” segments … we always record and fast forward through to get to the point!

    It’s time to go … OzTam!

  3. I don’t watch any of these shows so I may be missing something but can someone explain what this is even about? All I am getting is that the part of the show where they announce a winner is not as long or something?

    1. Sipheren: Where networks run a 2 hour reality grand final they code it into two titles with OzTAM (ie. 1:50min grand final, 10min Winner Announced). The shorter timeframe is a bit like getting an audience “peak” and as a result sexy headlines about how big the audience was, rather than an average across the entire broadcast. It’s why News and The Project has 2 figures too. In recent years some of these had been very brief, exploiting the ability to massage the numbers. OzTAM had clarified some consensus that networks would code these to a minimum time frame of 15 mins, so there would be a standard. Data shows Seven and Nine have continued shorter segment coding. Sport is another where there is separate coding, albeit not as radically as Reality.

      Maxxdude: Does not affect shows running longer. It affects the portion of the show’s coding with OzTAM.

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