Australia’s leading subscription television (STV) providers, Foxtel and Austar, in conjunction with Multi Channel Network (MCn), today announced a new digital television audience measurement system (AMS) which will radically change the
way TV viewing is studied and reported.
10,000 Australian subscription television homes will participate in the most in-depth audience survey system ever created in Australia to comprehensively reveal the behaviour of viewers into the future.
The subscription television survey base will be eight times larger than the current STV national audience measurement panel. The new subscription television system will measure personal digital recorder viewing including time-shifted viewing, and it will also measure responses to interactive advertising (i-Ads). The research will provide subscription TV platforms, channels and their advertising clients with data which complements the existing currency measurements from OzTAM and RegTAM – however it won’t replace such systems.
Details of the new measurement system, plus a new phase in the automation of interactive advertisements (i-Ads), were unveiled by Foxtel, Austar and MCn at the annual ASTRA Conference, ‘Claiming the Future’ in Sydney today, with an expected launch date of July 2009 for the new AMS and mid 2008 for the i-Ads. The AMS will be officially named in the lead up to the launch.
Foxtel’s CEO and Managing Director Kim Williams AM said subscription television is taking a leadership role in delivering more accountable audience measurement for advertisers. Mr Williams said: ‘The new AMS is an innovative and cutting edge audience measurement tool which will enable better understanding of audiences and will provide a win for consumers and advertisers. It will allow us to receive data from set top boxes in STV homes and more accurately understand the viewing habits and behaviours of television viewers in those homes.
‘As proven already in the USA and UK the capability to record and measure every single press of any button on the remote control in Foxtel and Austar households will be extraordinarily powerful. It will provide an unprecedented level of accountability and audience insight for program makers and advertisers. In fact, the AMS will have accurate actual data
drawn from a panel significantly larger than the current OzTam STV panel which surveys about 1250 households nationally. The AMS panel of 10,000 television households signals Foxtel and Austar’s leadership and commitment to listen to our audiences about what they watch and when and how they watch it. It will be invaluable in tracking time shift viewing
with devices such as the Foxtel iQ and Austar’s MyStar,’ Mr Williams said.
More info is available from http://www.foxtel.com.au/
[Release from Foxtel Publicity]