Zero sum game?

Foxtel Media led the agitation for a rebel currency alliance after simmering frustration with OzTam's numbers last year boiled over. CEO Mark Frain broke cover on the coalition of the willing at its Upfront last October, swiping at the length of time it has taken the incumbent to come up with a viable TV and video currency and the "drama" in finding solutions to measurement problems.

He took a more diplomatic tone at the Future of TV Advertising conference – insisting the issue is bigger than ad dollars.

Either way, ahead of the Video Futures Collective working out how to build a new currency in earnest, he said media buyers already have faith in Foxtel's new set of numbers, produced by Kantar after it handed over two years worth of set top box data. “$75m – over 20 per cent of our revenues – is now traded against [our] alternate currency”, said Frain, with commitment from “every single holding group” as well as independents.

That indicates advertisers are comfortable with multiple metrics and currencies, “because the reality is that [agencies] deal with them all the time,” per Frain. “So it’s not about us versus them. That is not the conversation at all.”

The issue, he said, is ratings black spots and discrepancies that have a direct commercial impact.

Frain said “forty per cent of our entire platform … registers a zero … I like doughnuts, but I can’t sell them and you can’t buy them … Which is why I can’t leave our set to box data idling any longer.”

He pointed to numbers now rubber-stamped by Kantar – “which underpins the entire TV ratings system in the UK and China and other countries” – where Foxtel shows previously rating at zero now notch thousands of eyeballs. While small, “they’ve all got numbers [against them],” which means they can be sold.

Meanwhile, some shows measured via Kantar showed lower audiences than OzTam’s numbers. “So we are delivering something transparent,” per Frain. “We’re not making shit up, we’re not marking our own homework.”

Deeper impacts

Frain said zero ratings – and differences in numbers from OzTam’s panel versus its own Kantar-stamped data – create problems beyond an inability to sell “doughnuts” to advertisers.

He pointed to numbers via Kantar for women’s sport – “AFL W up 24 per cent, NRL W up 52 per cent,” per Frain. “Women's sport, generally, its biggest challenge is lobbying government for funding, lobbying local communities local councils, and then finally lobbying corporate Australia to spend more. We just improved their story by 50 per cent. Their pitch to government is 50 per cent better than it was yesterday … That's why an alternative currency is so important – beyond just advertising.”

Given content quotas, Frain said accuracy directly impacts whether local shows get commissioned, pointing to Kantar-stamped data where audience numbers ranged 40-108 per cent higher for shows like Strife and Love It or List It versus OzTam numbers.

“As an industry we operate on plus or minus 10 per cent – fine. But the scale of [difference] in these numbers and what it could mean for our business decisions can be significant. Wendy Moore [Foxtel Lifestyle GM] might make three more seasons of Love it or List it. Or she might not. So the insights that we get from the alternative currency go way beyond the relationship we have with buyer or seller.”

Either way, he pointed to the US market, where platforms like DatafuelX “plug into all agency groups and they can pick the currency they are trading – Nielsen, VideoAmp iSpot, ComScore – they pick the one that has most depth for their client. So that already exists in the US … I don’t think the Australian market has the scale for four currencies”, said Frain. “But it certainly has the scale for alternative currencies.”

Holdcos: Horse bolted

Some holdco investment chiefs – and OzTam’s CEO – think multiple currencies are inevitable. But it’s not the preferred option.

“Is two currencies ideal? No,” per OMG chief investment officer Kristiaan Kroon. “But we are pragmatists and our job is to engage with the market as it is.” Would he like to see a single currency? “100 per cent.” But he’s also backing the new Video Futures Collective because “we've spent years saying we need a solution that brings everything together and we've had no movement forward”.

IPG CEO Mark Coad took a similar line. A single TV-video currency would be simpler, he said, but in its absence agency groups including IPG have already built their own workarounds.

Ultimately, said Coad, “clients don’t give a shit about TV measurement, all they care about is selling goods and services … So anything we can do that helps them do that is going to be productive, and it's going to help this industry sell their inventory more effectively.”

Either way, he said “The old days of traditional TV dictating terms of how they are measured” are over, because agencies now spend the majority of clients’ money in digital channels. Unless agencies get what they need, said Coad, “we’re going to make our own [systems] or buy it somewhere else.”

GroupM investment chief Melissa Hey suggested multiple currencies are inevitable. “You won’t get to one,” she said. While broadcasters across BVOD and linear free-to-air TV currently represent the lions’ share of total viewing, circa 52 per cent, she forecast a decline to “maybe 30 per cent” in three year’s time.

Meanwhile, the new alliance doesn’t cover “TikTok, Meta, other local players”, said Hey.

“So there are going to be multiple currencies. I get that we need to have one big main one to actually get the masses, which is likely to be VOZ – while the networks are maintaining that [majority] audience share,” she added.

“But there are going to be multiple currencies and we're going to have to live in that world … Each of the groups are probably going to be developing their own way to navigate that.”

Stop, collaborate, listen

Despite long-held frustrations with OzTam, or Nielsen’s, “mistakes … that cost us so much money that we never get back”, OMG’s Kroon said the best outcome would be the Video Futures Collective and OzTam working together.

That there were “almost no clients” at the Future of TV event – a statement disputed by the organisers – “should scare all of the networks and all of the streamers,” per Kroon.

“So the question comes down to are we prepared to collaborate and give ground or not? If so, you've got more chance to bring clients into the room and of being more valuable in the future,” said Kroon.

“If not, we’ll work with all of your different currencies. We might even build our own – holding groups have started building their own panels and currencies because they are so frustrated with what they're facing. But we're all a bit screwed in that scenario.”

Kroon suggested the TV industry should lift the out-of-home playbook.

“What we have is a dysfunctional industry – and we have no choice but to work with everybody. Out-of-home used to be the most dysfunctional when it came to measurement – and it has really helped their revenue now they have collectively come together. Now for a number of reasons, one of them measurement, they are seeing revenue growth. TV has gone from being the most cohesive to the most dysfunctional. That is a problem we should try and fix.”

OzTam: Opening up?

Karen Halligan took over as OzTam CEO three months ago. She’s aiming to fix problems and said OzTam, jointly owned by Seven, Nine and Ten – and long-perceived by others as a closed shop – is now prepared to cede ground.

“There has been a shift in appetite within OzTam, from board members, for us to move to an industry-wide solution,” per Halligan. “That was a very clear directive I had from the board and the intent is to be more inclusive, to look at the big picture.”

While accepting that multiple currencies are probably inevitable, she said that poses a key problem: “Where are we going to get a quality, central source of truth if we don't come together?”

Currency fragmentation in the US, she said, “is a shit-show”. Rather than pick losers, she said the industry wins “if everyone pools investment and people so that we can really understand what's happening with video viewing at large.”

Asked why OzTam is persisting with a panel solution, given TV is moving to IP delivery and the potential to address zero ratings via return path data, Halligan said OzTam is now open to those approaches.

“We’re looking at options. I’d love to be exploring those solutions with Foxtel and I’ve continued that conversation since I’ve been [CEO] … I’m hopeful we can get there in some shape or form,” said Halligan.

“We’re also looking at other avenues to future-proof zero ratings into the future – large scale data fusion, ACR [automatic content recognition] and we are having conversations with people about that right now,” she added.

No panel beaters

But Halligan said that the current value of a panel should not be underestimated.

“At the moment, my understanding of how demographics are being deployed in the construct of what Foxtel are doing, it's a very different methodology [versus] the real behaviour in a home to the minute. As I understand it, they don't have that level of granularity. So [the better solution] should be [those component pieces and players] together,” said Halligan.

Paramount GM of data & insights, Gareth Tomlin, also an OzTam board member, backed that view. He said 16 million devices already feed into OzTam’s VPM (video player minutes) system, “so we have already moved on from a 100 per cent panel construct”, and OzTam is prepared to move further. But not away entirely. 

“The future of measurement includes return path data sets and big data sets," said Tomlin. “But it is always underpinned I think by a panel to inform that cross-platform viewing of real human beings and their real activity, not just jamming two data sets together for the biggest number.”

Asked whether Paramount+ – sales chief Rod Prosser earlier, when pushed, said "our ambition is this half" for its ad tier launch – would ultimately be measured by VOZ or via the Video Future Collective’s proposed currency, Tomlin said “our intention would be VOZ.”

No VOZ trading before August

The problem is, agencies won’t be able to trade using VOZ by the time Paramount+ intends to launch its ad play.

While buyers can plan using the long-awaited total TV currency, Halligan said VOZ trading won’t arrive until August – and that’s if there are no further delays.

Speaking at an earlier conference session, Halligan said that the main hold up is MediaOcean – the “juggernaut” back-end that agencies plug into to underpin trading. About $200bn in global ad spend goes through its platform annually – as such, it’s not renowned for agility.

Some agencies have suggested they are unlikely to start trading using VOZ until next year. Halligan said she would be “very saddened” if it takes that long.

“Everyone asked OzTam and the television industry to build this – they wanted it. I think we need to be more embracing of it now that it's much closer to being real,” said Halligan.

OMG’s Kroon suggested Halligan may be disappointed.

“I think Karen is going to be a bit sad. It's going to take longer than we'd like – but we have done a lot of heavy lifting,” said Kroon, “and from Omnicom’s perspective, it will become currency.”

But he warned that the Video Futures Collective, if it does start to build its own currency, would face just the same issue.

“Anyone who tells you MediaOcean is going to be quick … that hasn't worked previously for anyone.”