No consensus on BVOD results for 2020
Before the year wraps, there is a good 'ol stoush between Nine & Seven over BVOD numbers.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
The 2020 ratings season has been run and won but both Nine and Seven are claiming wins in the booming Broadcast Video on Demand numbers.
A Seven press release this week declared, “#1 commercial free to air BVOD platform. 42.7% share of commercial free to air BVOD market. Up 80% on 2019 in streaming minutes.”
A Nine press release similarly claimed, “9Now is Australia’s No. 1 CFTA BVOD platform.” It cited a 41.9% share to Seven’s 41.1% and 10’s 17.0%.”
Nine based results on the Calendar Yer thus far, which includes the Australian Open, while Seven numbers were drawn from Wks 7-48 (including Easter).
That wasn’t the only difference.
While Seven counted the new Co-Viewing data introduced in September, designed to to reflect that people often watch BVOD content together. Nine did not, claiming the data is still in test mode ahead of the new VOZ ratings launch.
Seven Director of Programming Angus Ross said, “By reverting to not including co-viewing they are opting to use an outdated metric for BVOD. It is the equivalent of going back to diaries to measure TV ratings.”
“7Plus is now the number one commercial BVOD service, knocking off 9Now. Obviously Home and Away is very big on that service, plus we’ve got a huge library. But all three of our new commissions: Big Brother, Farmer and SAS have been our three biggest shows on the service ever.”
Hamish Turner Nine’s program director said, “Ultimately this is a good news story about the growth in the medium across all commercial players. Year to Date Nine remains the leader in the BVOD market – we have the largest unique audience, the largest signed in BVOD user ecosystem against the demos that matter. We use the BVOD metric that we traded on in 2020, once VOZ launches the industry will obviously move to the co-viewing metric.
“We also don’t trade digital on survey year, as leaving a major live streamed event like the Australian Open out ignores a major part of the picture. We look forward to the continued growth of BVOD and 9Now in 2021 which will be further accelerated by us welcoming back the UK series from Mallorca and Love Island Australia.”
Neither Seven nor Nine numbers include shares by ABC’s iview or SBS on Demand.
8 Responses
I seem to recall that VOZ was due to launch in March. Maybe they didn’t say which year.
They also confirmed delayed due to COVID. Hard to visit panel homes.
Oh ok, I thought it was about integrating virtual views into the existing system, which wouldn’t require that. Or does it? Bit confused as I thought they would get the VOD data straight from the broadcasters.
Isn’t SBS considered a commercial FTA? How does their share compare to 9 and 7?
Less than. But higher than 10
SBS is Government owned and funded, it is a public broadcaster with advertising. It’s share of advertising is small (only 5 minutes per hour allowed ) and is usually not counted in advertising numbers.
As I read this I realised I rarely use 7 or 9 for BVOD. But ABC iView and SBS Demand I use more frequently. Have shows that are more appealing. Would be interesting how 7 and 9 stack up against ABC which is both reliable and has breadth of choice.
iView doesn’t have ads which helps. Nine increased their BVOD revenue 30% in 2020 by increasing the number of ads on Now.
Once VOZ finally starts there will be standard results to compare.