Next-day TV ratings model is ‘a dinosaur that belongs in a museum’, Seven’s marketing boss says
In this compelling opinion piece, Seven’s chief marketing and audience officer Melissa Hopkins takes aim at the “crazy obsession” with the archaic overnight TV ratings model and calls “bullshit” on more accurate audience figures being ignored.
It was a long time coming, but the arrival of next-day VOZ data on 1 May was a really big deal for everyone in the media and marketing world.
For the first time, we have a true picture of audiences and true reach across all screens. That’s a real game changer.
The arrival of the new VOZ data also highlighted, yet again, that next-day linear audience numbers are a dinosaur, and seriously deserve to be in a museum.
Interesting point re national tv market. Out of curiosity Mel… when you were at Optus did you buy TV nationally? Or did you treat metro and regional audiences differently?
Lots of valid points around the strength of FTA content from a total audience perspective but while the networks continue to sell the linear spot and the BVOD spot separately the linear overnights will continue to be an important metric. If I bought a linear spot then how many people watched in BVOD is irrelevant to me
Interesting the network with the highest proportion of viewers aged over 65 talking about dinosaurs! Yes, we should be able to look at national figures – but linear TV is still bought by market and BVOD is bought separately apart from sponsorships. So what’s the point of looking at Total TV figures now? Overnight ratings are hugely important for short-term marketing KPIs and quick reach generation is a huge benefit of linear TV so beware of throwing out one of your USPs.
Pot kettle talking about dinosaurs. Thinking about TV as purely FTA programming is ridiculously outdated with connected TV household penetration and viewing.
Talk about dinosaurs.
The TV ratings are primarily produced as an indicator of how many people will see an ad in a TV program (reporting the ‘average minute’), rather than a fleeting few digital seconds, to provide a basis for the likely number of people within a demographic will be exposed to the ad.
You only need to look at the early VOZ data to see that the National BVOD is very small. Further, the BVOD is a cumulative number – 1 day, 7 days, 28 days (if you are patient). So If you are brand-building, despite BVOD’s small size, it may be useful. But if you are a retailer trying to sell products or services right now in this tight economy … forget it.
So the reason it is ‘archaic’ is because it represents the average audience of ‘yesterday’ on the following day, rather than some aggregation of ‘impressions’ across a month .. which some may consider, shall we say, somewhat like a museum.
Good article, and I think change is inevitable. Interesting how the media, who control the 24 hour spin cycle, with gotcha moments, aren’t too keen to have their own analytics analysed in the same period.
Just saying