Future of TV Advertising: Is Australian total TV measurement stuck in a rut?

“We keep talking about the same s***.”

That’s how Foxtel Media CEO Mark Frain put it when discussing the state of total TV measurement in Australia during a panel at the Future of TV Advertising event in Sydney last week.

His comment underscores Australian marketers’ frustration with the perceived lack of progress in total TV measurement compared to the outcome-based models of walled gardens or streaming TV.

Marketers said total TV — a combination of broadcast linear and broadcast video on demand (BVOD) — remains a powerful draw for audiences but relies on traditional metrics like OzTAM panel-based viewing stats. They called on broadcasters to meet the demand for measurement at a time when CMOs lean on brand lift and conversion metrics to justify their spend.

How things stand

In Australia, Google and Meta dominate digital advertising, accounting for approximately 70% of the market share.

Total TV, on the other hand, has seen a decline in ad revenue in recent years, with the most recent report from ThinkTV showing a decrease of 8% for the year ending June 2024.

This is despite total TV remaining a dominant force in consumers’ lives, reaching roughly 72% of Australians every week.

As some marketers see it, the industry isn’t moving fast enough to support total TV’s prominence with robust measurement tools.

"[For] Meta and Google, analytics is first nature to them. They measure everything, to their benefit. We are optimizing within their own ecosystems based on outcomes. How do we get to a place where [TV] can do that faster?” said Marelle Salib, chief media partnerships officer at Omnicom Media Group.

Some, like Foxtel, believe going at it independently may be the answer.

OzTAM was dealt a blow last year when Foxtel exited the agency’s datasets, leaving only free-to-air networks like Seven, Nine, Paramount 10, ABC and SBS.

Foxtel has since begun using Kantar data to trade ad inventory.

Industry leaders at the event debated Foxtel’s ability to match OzTAM’s accuracy, even as they expressed dissatisfaction with OzTAM’s focus on reach over outcomes.

This led to broader questions about the effectiveness of measurement systems as TV viewership continues to fragment.

“As an industry, we need to … move beyond audience. Audience [reach] historically has been a proxy to [business] outcomes, and that’s just not enough anymore,” said Craig Service, chief customer officer of Adgile Media, a company providing verification of impressions across linear and connected TV (CTV).

“There are so many different delivery channels. How are they actually delivering outcomes for businesses?” Service said.

Where things are going

Australian marketers are attempting to measure total TV’s outcomes in siloes, by working with a patchwork of solutions and fragmented data, said Service.

“They’re trying to create their own tools to get across this, and I don’t know that it’s actually sustainable,” he said.

Service said Adgile is already equipped to deliver outcome-based measurement in real time for total TV, though the company has not yet delivered this at scale.

“Google, Meta, Amazon, they are dominating … but all that they’re currently doing now is available for TV,” he said. “We’re doing it now [and we’re doing it] independently.”

Calling for the industry to commit to a unified, transparent approach, Foxtel’s Frain said of Adgile: “[Here’s] a company that can be independent and put together a platform across the industry for all parts of TV and tell us which bits work best and in totality, how well TV goes versus radio, versus outdoor [advertising].”

The event wrapped with the panel — which included Nine’s National Sales Director for Total Television Nikki Rooke — voicing support for a real-time, outcomes-based dashboard for total TV, which Service said Adgile could potentially deliver in a year.

This would require all Australian broadcasters to throw their support behind the idea with the same urgency.

“That’s future-facing stuff. Let’s get on with it,” Frain said.