What you need to know:

• Foxtel aims to have proof of concept measurement system in market next year. Kantar brought in to analyse set-top box data.
• VideoAmp, challenging Nielsen’s incumbent status in the US, brought in to build alternative TV and streaming currency.
• Foxtel establishing Video Futures Collective to build new system, with SBS and Samsung Ads on board. Foxtel Media CEO Mark Frain claimed “global platforms” also signed up.
• The firm confirmed it has pulled out of broadcaster-funded body ThinkTV but will keep paying OzTam subscription while building new system.
• Other upfront announcements include streaming aggregation play Hubbl – with a push into screen hardware incoming; carbon metrics reporting for advertisers via Scope3 deal; a big content slate.

Currency crunch

Foxtel has broken cover on plans to build a rival TV measurement currency, bidding to corral a breakaway collective of global streamers and local TV companies such as SBS in a direct challenge to incumbent provider OzTam. Announced at Foxtel Media’s Upfront the aim is to have a proof of concept in market next year.

Foxtel has previously signalled intent, but stepped up machinations after simmering frustration with OzTam boiled over when accusations of inflated numbers made their way to masthead media sections. OzTam’s shareholders are Seven, Nine and Ten. Foxtel is understood to have sought a seat on the board but was rejected.

Foxtel Media CEO Mark Frain referenced the measurement spats at the pay TV provider’s Upfront tonight.

“In February, it came to our attention that some of our audience data was being queried. So began a seven-month forensic review of OzTam’s methodology when collecting data in [OzTam’s] internet-delivered sample,” he told media buyers and marketers. “Resolution didn’t come quickly. It was frustrating for you and for us ... Drama often obscures the real issues.”

The “real issue,” per Frain, is that “in October 2023 we should all be able to confidently measure and transact digital currency in a digital world. We [Foxtel Media] sit on data from over a million set top boxes and 3.1 million digital customers. We’d be negligent if we leave this data idling for another minute.”

He suggested the “limitations” of household panels such as those used by OzTam to record and measure what people are watching “has opened the door to alternative solutions”.

Hence Foxtel Media inking a deal with Kantar to crunch two years worth of historical set top box data and analyse that data going forward. “Kantar will provide a counterpoint to OzTam’s linear panel in 2024,” per Frain.

Rebel alliance

But the longer-term play, aligning a coalition of global streamers and local networks to back an alternative currency built via US provider VideoAmp, will likely have far deeper impact – if it can first get off the ground and second get sufficient buy-in.

“It could radically change the full landscape in Australia,” said Frain, who’s planning to move quickly. “We don’t think it will take four years,” he said, swiping at OzTam’s travails in bringing to market a total TV currency, Voz.

VideoAmp is making headway in the US because broadcasters and agencies think incumbent Nielsen has been too slow to get to grips with streaming. The firm, which last month raised another $140m, uses set top box data and automatic content recognition, or ACR, to pull together cross-device data for both linear and streaming. In the US it claims coverage of circa 40 million households, versus Nielsen’s 50,000 – and a plethora of other measurement players are touting similar hybrid measurement approaches, leading to currency fragmentation across the US market.

By bidding to corral major players locally, Foxtel appears to be attempting to both seize the initiative while limiting the potential for mass fragmentation, a situation Nine sales chief Michael Stephenson suggested would lead to “total chaos” at the Future of TV Advertising conference earlier this year.

The Foxtel Media chief tonight nodded to those concerns. “Some may worry about what happens with multiple measurement providers in our market. It sounds a bit hard, uncomfortable – and it may be for a time,” he said. Hence Foxtel for now maintaining its OzTam contract to provide “checks and balances” on its numbers while building out the breakaway.

Win or bust?

VideoAmp, per Frain, has the credibility and connections to provide an alternative currency that delivers “wins” both for those buying ad space, and those selling it.

“They're already doing that in the US, working with OMG, IPG, Dentsu, GroupM, Havas, Publicis and Horizon on the buy-side … and Warner Brothers, Discovery, Disney, NBCU, Fox and Paramount on the sell-side. Together we will connect the dots between ad exposures, audiences and outcomes,” he said.

“We will not do this in a vacuum. We welcome partnership with other streamers, broadcasters and publishers – we've already started those conversations,” he added, announcing the Video Futures Collective.

That alliance, which may provide a challenge to industry body ThinkTV, from which Foxtel publicly confirmed it had withdrawn, “brings together publishers, agencies and marketers to review ways of working, establish protocols, unpick blind spots”, said Frain. “SBS, Samsung Ads and a number of global players are already on board.”

The intent is to “stand up a proof of concept for measurement and a currency across streaming and linear in 2024”, per Frain, before moving on to “the next phase of work in 2025.”

Foxtel’s pincer movement also pits it against the broadcaster-backed BVOD Connect, a project to build a total TV trading product powered by the OzTam identifier, with plans to launch in 2024.

Aggregation play

Foxtel also touted a major streaming aggregation play dubbed Hubbl. Mirroring Sky’s approach in the UK with Glass, the plan is to put all paid and free streaming apps in one place via a single user interface. Users will also be able to manage all their subscriptions via Hubbl. The system requires viewers to plug in a small box – but Foxtel also touted serious hardware: Hubbl Glass – a TV with Hubbl and built-in sound bar. Details on which manufacturers will make the TV and firm launch date, beyond ‘in the coming months’, are under wraps.

Carbon trading

Quarterly reports for advertisers on the carbon footprint of their ads were another Upfront announcement. Foxtel has inked a deal with Scope3, the firm founded by former AppNexus CEO and co-founder, Brian O’Kelley, which is bidding to shed transparency on end-to-end emissions within the media supply chain while also bundling 'cleaner' inventory.

The move comes as holding companies are challenged by their own global mandates to decarbonise alongside those of client brands. As a result, some holdcos are now running the rule over media companies, beginning to rank them on carbon emissions and progress in reducing them.

Customer engagement director, Toby Dewar, claimed Foxtel Media has already “reduced the carbon impact of our display inventory by 63 per cent, and streaming video inventory by 36 per cent”. As brands push to strip out excess emissions from their supply chains, said Dewar, agencies and media will “increasingly need to provide” carbon emissions reporting.

“There are still some big questions we need to tackle – like who pays [for the carbon cost and measures to reduce it] but we're up for that conversation,” said Dewar. “There's much more to do but at least we're not standing still.”

Big slate

Foxtel is never light on sport. Alongside AFL and cricket rights locked in until 2031 (though shared with Seven), there’s also the NRL, basketball, netball, Supercars, Moto GP, Formula 1 Boxing and UFC, Golf, AFLW, NRLW, NFL and surfing.

The broadcaster is also now in production with its first feature film, How to Make Gravy, with Nicole Kidman-produced The Last Anniversary also coming to Binge.

New series include Strife, based on Mia Freedman’s memoir; mystery thriller High Country; season two of crime drama The Twelve starting Sam Neill; season two of comedy Colin From Accounts; four-part miniseries Mix Tape; plus new docu-soap reality original series, Billion Dollar Playground.

There’s also True detective: Night Country starring Jodie Foster; dark comedy Bookie, starring Michael Sheen; The Sympathizer, based on the eponymous Pulitzer Prize-winning novel; The Regime, starring Kate Winslet; Family Guy sequel Ted; plus VIGIL S2, starring Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie.

Also incoming are Apples Never Fall, starring Sam Neill and Annette Bening; Feud Capote Versus The Swans starring Naomi Watts, Demi Moore and Molly Ringwald; and Belgravia: The Next Chapter, taking place 24 years from the series Belgravia.

Returning shows include Selling Houses Australia; Gogglebox Australia and Celebrity Gogglebox Australia; and the Great Australian Bake off hosted by the late Cal Wilson, her final role.