One year since announcing its plans to launched an OzTam alternative measurement solution with Kantar, Foxtel Media confirmed its new currency will be available for agencies to trade on by the end of 2024.

Announced at the media company's 2025 Upfront event at Sydney's White Bay Power Station on Thursday evening, the new total audience measurement solution promises to provide enhanced data transparency over all of the Foxtel Group’s 4.8 million linear and streaming subscribers across Foxtel, Binge, and Kayo. It comes less than a month after Foxtel Media's official exit from commercial TV measurement body, OzTam.

In the last year, the new measurement system has ingested, processed and analysed 24 months of linear data collected through more than one million Foxtel set-top boxes. Foxtel has been sharing the analysed data with sports partnership clients to track the weekly delivery of campaigns since February, and as of this month, began integrating linear viewing data into ad infrastructure platform Mediaocean.

"Our goal in building a total audience measurement solution was simple: to give our clients the tools to find their audiences, access accurate data, and ensure their media investments deliver real returns. By having everything in one place, brands and agencies can seamlessly bring in research partners and focus on what truly matters – maximising ROI. Foxtel Media is committed to providing open, reliable data, so you can make the best decisions for your campaigns. We’re incredibly proud to launch this total audience measurement solution and we look forward to continuing our incredible momentum into 2025," said Foxtel Media chief Mark Frain.

From early 2025, the new currency will be unified across Foxtel's digital and linear inventories, with a new partnership with tv beat to convert linear TV spots into digitally tracked and reported impressions, enabling improved audience targeting, ad analytics and programmatic trading of linear ad buys. The ad tech business currently provides set-top box measurement services for Sky Media in the UK.

"Foxtel Media’s partnership with tvbeat is a game changer for our linear offering and will provide far greater flexibility for advertisers. Linear audiences still hold huge value and this value should not be held to ransom by outdated trading and analysis. The conversion to digital impressions opens the opportunity to move a once standard demographic buy into a highly targeted behavioural segment using our Characters product. Linear impressions can then be traded programmatically - still brand safe and premium – and be included in the reporting with the rest of a digital buy," said Hasan.

According to tvbeat research, inflexibility with linear impressions means that 30-50% of linear ad spot inventory is currently undervalued, despite containing high-quality audiences and premium content. The new partnership will enable a standard linear demographic buy to be switched to a data-lead behavioural buy to reach a more targeted audience, within a premium brand safe environment, and with detailed post campaign impression reporting.

By identifying and converting these to digital impressions, Foxtel Media claims each impression can be better monetised and measured, resulting in 70-90% increased inventory value.

CEO of tvbeat Robert Farazin, said: "The Foxtel Group supplies high-quality content but the demand for traditional, spot unit-based buying is shifting to audience impression-based buying. Working with Foxtel Media, our solution will capture the opportunity of growing CTV demand, resulting in less waste, higher yield and better buyer ROI for advertisers on linear TV. By automating the sale, delivery and measurement, advertisers can enjoy much greater ease-of-execution and enhanced reporting."

The new currency has also been bolstered by new data partnerships with CommBank iQ and Adgile, aimed at enhancing campaign planning, performance and return on investment (ROI) for brands and advertisers.

As CommBank iQ's inaugural partner across video for digital audience and measurement, Foxtel Media will gain access to Australia's largest consumer dataset of over seven million people, allowing the business to add over 100 new attributes for audience segmentation, enhancing its addressable offering, Characters, early next year.

Already, CommBank iQ has already uncovered insights into the spending behaviour of Foxtel Group customers across the travel and quick service restaurant (QSR) categories, with Foxtel Group customers spending 73% more than non-Foxtel customers in the travel category. During the past financial year, Foxtel Group customers increased spend by 80% more than non-Foxtel customers, while Kayo and Binge subscribers spend 50% more in the QSR category than non-subscribers.

"Measurement is the key to proving media-planning effectiveness. By partnering with CommBank iQ we’re further equipped to help advertisers not just reach premium audiences, but understand how their investments lead to specific outcomes and provide them with the tools they need to optimise media planning," said Chief Sales Officer, Foxtel Media, Nev Hasan.

Foxtel Media's new partnership with Adgile will offer independent verification of impression delivery across Foxtel linear and streaming platforms, tracking performance and business outcomes based on attention, response and conversion. The initiative will start with the benchmarks of ten categories, built from Adgile’s extensive ROI database of over 300 clients.

"At the heart of what Foxtel Media offers is Watchability: a premium ad experience in a premium content environment. The partnership with Adgile is a direct result of our client's requests for actional insights, and we’re pleased to unlock next generation planning for our clients with enhanced ROI reporting and audience targeting," Hasan said. “With now having all of our data in one place with Kantar, we have incredible optionality in where we send this data. These two ROI partnerships are the catalyst and starting point for this ROI evolution for our business.”

National Head of Investment at GroupM, Claire Butterworth, said the new data offering would provide "additional peace of mind" for clients who "want to minimise risk and amplify efficiency by allowing them to determine how to deploy budgets across Foxtel’s premium platforms to their greatest effect, plus see the direct impact of their spend."

Meanwhile, the Video Futures Collective (VFC), a breakaway video industry body founded by Foxtel Media earlier in the year, is powering ahead, with two new research projects under away in partnership with BeatGrid and Amplified Intelligence.

The BeatGrid project will be conducted in partnership with MAGNA Global and Wesfarmers (whose brands include Kmart, Officeworks, OnePass, Target), to investigate the effectiveness of advertising in the premium video market across media, marketing, and business outcomes.

The research will use BeatGrid’s proprietary Audio Content Recognition (ACR) technology and passive metering panel to measure the impact of video advertising on key business and marketing objectives, starting with Wesfarmers in the retail category. It will evaluate the effectiveness of cross-screen advertising by accurately measuring reach, frequency, incrementality and brand lift across a mix of VFC member platforms, while also assessing the impact of advertising on key business metrics such as in-store traffic.

National Managing Director of MAGNA, Lucy Formosa Morgan, said: "Understanding the effectiveness of video advertising in today’s fragmented media environment is a challenge for all brands. As an industry, we need to work together to best understand how we can provide value to our organisations from optimising the media mix, and to prove how marketing is playing a key role in adding business value. We look forward to collaborating with the VFC on this important research project to help the industry move forward.”

Conducted in partnership with Omnicom Media Group (OMG), the Amplified Intelligence project is claimed as the largest ever Australian study into attention and context amplification for video streaming.

It will explore high attention, low clutter environments to establish the value and impact of premium content. It will look at three areas of measurement: attention metrics (active, passive & non-attention); attention drivers (device, channel, program, daypart and ad length); and attention amplifiers (ad context and demographics).

The project will investigate the power of context in television to better understand the link between people’s engagement with video content and how that effects the advertising served alongside that content. It will also help to build the foundation for common industry metrics around attention.

Founder & CEO of Amplified Intelligence, Dr Karen Nelson-Field, said: “We know that attention is the gateway for an advertiser to achieve an outcome from their media investment. This project will be the most extensive research undertaken in Australia to establish how the engagement from must-watch content translates to attention in ad experiences. It will review the significant value content plays in this equation – and evaluate the difference that attention makes to brands.”

Chief Investment Officer at OMG Australia, Kristiaan Kroon, said: “The white noise created by the oversupply of advertising in Australia is having an ongoing impact of effectiveness for all brands. Attention signals are key in understanding this and optimising media to drive improved outcomes for our clients. Globally and locally OMG is at the forefront of the impact attention has on media selection and we are proud to be a partner in this research study, which aims to deliver insights that will help the entire industry make video advertising more effective and impactful."

Director of Customer Engagement at Foxtel Media, Toby Dewar, said: “At the start of this year, we asked brands and agencies what mattered most for them in the video marketplace, and what an organisation like the VFC could do to move the industry forward. The feedback was clear and consistent: brands know there is an opportunity to invest more in video, but need the proof, tools and support to get there. These projects exist to help to provide the support the industry needs to take advantage of the future of video.”

The results from the two research projects are expected in the first quarter of 2025.

The VFC has also welcomed Amazon Ads as its latest member, joining VEVO, YouTube, Samsung Ads, Disney Advertising, and SBS on Demand.

Speaking at Foxtel Media’s 2025 Upfronts, Dewar, who is also a member of the VFC steering committee, said: “The Video Futures Collective was created when we realised there was a gap in representation for premium video businesses like ours. We are delighted to welcome Amazon onboard as we level-up just 8 months after launching in April this year. The addition of Amazon means that the group counts another of Australia’s most popular streaming services amongst its members. We’re also excited to unveil two new projects supported by our members, with the goal of supporting the entire industry as it evolves to take advantage of the premium video revolution."