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Streaming impact may be novelty, says OzTAM.

OzTAM expects to see viewing habits return to normal when the "novelty" of streaming wanes.

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Streaming services may be just a novelty that will see television viewing habits return to normal once things settle, according to OzTAM CEO Doug Peiffer.

Speaking at the ASTRA Conference yesterday, Peiffer said several years ago, to gauge the impact of tablets on television viewing, OzTAM gave several tablets to the households and “let them go.”

“We saw a decline in viewing and then we saw them come back after the novelty wore off. It usually ended up with one person in the house owning that device,” he said.

“We recently gave 60 households Stan, Netflix and Presto.”

“And guess what? We saw the novelty factor go in, they were downloading everything, looking at all different pieces of content, it impacted their viewing and then it went almost back up to normal.”

OzTAM is owned by Seven, Nine and TEN, which plans to extend its ratings for catch-up services soon.

Source: AdNews

11 Responses

  1. Is he talking about watching on a tablet?

    The key issue is getting it on a TV. Which is very easy but some people probably would assume a chromecast is difficult. Or one of the many other options. I’m in the states at the moment, you go into a Best Buy and everything revolving around TVs and home cinema is all wifi enabled with Netflix, Hulu, Youtube and various other online services advertised. When we reach that level of saturation, that’s when the real killer for FTA TV.

    The biggest issue is, younger people, where the advertising revenue is will be the first to primarily switch off if they haven’t.

    1. Yes my late primary school aged children and their friends all know Netflix, Stan, iTunes etc not channel 7, 9 etc. They are completely unaccustomed to watching ads on TV shows.

  2. Hilarious. Clearly Peiffer, Mitchell, and co think that if they say it often enough then it will become true.

    The commercial FTA networks have been treating people with disdain for years but the only alternatives were expensive Foxtel or giving TV away altogether. Now, as more and more people become aware of the alternatives and have faster internet with larger quotas, they are switching away. I don’t think many of them will be coming back, especially if they’re after quality dramas and not into reality/competition shows.

  3. “Streaming services may be just a novelty that will see television viewing habits return to normal once things settle”. OzTAM CEO Doug Peiffer
    Add that one to the list –
    “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
    “Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night.” Darryl Zanuck, executive at 20th Century Fox, 1946
    “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Ken Olsen, founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
    “I predict the Internet will soon go spectacularly supernova and in 1996 catastrophically collapse.”
    Robert Metcalfe, founder of 3Com, 1995
    “Apple is already dead.” Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, 1997
    “Two years from now, spam will be solved.” Bill Gates,…

    1. Spot on, Jason. Also, when silent movies were replaced by “talkies” in the mid 1920s, many people claimed that sound would be a short-lived fad that would fade away.

      Streaming is here to stay, especially since they offer shows free of the obscene amount of on-screen clutter that visually ruin many FTA shows .

  4. Obviously when people get something new they are going to play with it a lot. There are differences between the US and here, what’s local content to them is foreign content here, and Hulu is alternative way of watching current local series.

    But the main benefit of Netflix remains the same, there is never nothing you would like to watch available. Summer cable viewing was down 20% in the use because good old series are trumping what expensive cable channels have on.

    FTA was declining anyway, streaming is going to accelerate that. At it will increase as the price falls for broadband.

  5. People will go to where the content they are after is – if its free to air then they’ll be there. If its streaming, they’ll be there. If it only by illegal downloads – then that’s where people will go. That is what is happening here – free to air is losing people because it is not giving enough of what everyone wants.

    Crazy when you think of it – the more channels free to air has, the less they have to offer. At our house we watch less free to air than ever – that’s not because on Netflix, its because it just offers less than ever.

  6. Oztam should be more focused on fixing the crap ratings system in the country which allows for example channel 9 1 hr news Monday to Friday to be classified as 2 shows and channel 9 1 hr weekend news to be classified as 1 show.

    Hardly think 60 households is a decent sample. What kind of viewers were they? If they are drama or movie fans then streaming would be useful mostly for older content and drama on free to air is crap anyway. If they are sports fans or like other kinds of shows other than drama or movies than streaming wouldn’t be meeting their needs. Not to mention streaming mostly lacks current content and catch up sites whilst still need work carry more content than they used to. Oztam can make all the statements they like but this really lacks detail and does nothing to address the problems in the country with accessing content.

  7. Netflix has been in the USA for years, and I don’t believe tv ratings have gone up and the so called ‘netflix fatigue’ has set in. Nine better hope it is not a novelty, since they own 50% of Stan. Although if you look at the number of people that have tried it vs the number currently subscribing in the audience inventory, that might be the case for Stan.

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