By Gareth Tomlin, general manager data Insights and analytics, Paramount Australia
The power and scale of broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) platforms is undeniable. Over 11 million Australians a month watch one of the commercial BVOD platforms (10 Play, 9 Now, 7Plus or SBS On Demand), up over 30% in two years.
Total TV was the common thread of all the networks’ Upfronts season, as it should be. Total TV is the foundation of effective advertising campaigns. BVOD platforms have surfaced the millions of viewers that broadcast TV was thought to have lost and is attracting millions of new ones. Over one million of 10’s monthly BVOD audience don’t watch a minute of linear TV, and that figure will only grow as viewing shifts towards the connected TV (CTV) ecosystem.
BVOD viewing has many similarities to linear TV. The biggest franchises on linear TV, such as Australian Survivor or Married At First Sight, also perform strongly on BVOD. Live stream viewing on BVOD peaks during prime time on linear TV, and all networks are seeing record live stream numbers for their evening news and sport.
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Gareth Tomlin
But BVOD viewing does not always follow the same rules.
Most notably, audience duplication between BVOD services is far lower than TV. Some of this is common sense.
Firstly, it’s very easy to change channels on linear TV, and viewers have been conditioned to “flick”. 10 Peach Comedy is just one arrow up on a remote control from 10’s primary channel. Nine is but a whisker away from Seven. In 2025, TV viewers are savvier than ever when it comes to quickly changing channels at the end of their program of choice, meaning audiences are crossing over between channels and networks regularly.
A key difference across BVOD platforms is far less audience duplication. Of the 2.6 million Australians who watch 10 on BVOD every month, 73% of them do not watch 7Plus and 65% don’t watch 9Now. Similarly, over 70% of 9Now viewers don’t watch 7Plus in a typical month. In other words, the pool of total BVOD viewers is massive, but their overlap is small.
BVOD platforms like 10 Play have invested in discoverability of content, personalisation and vast libraries of premium and exclusive content that continues to grow. That means viewers are sticky within the platform, but it is more difficult to “flick” to different BVOD platforms.
Despite home screens on CTVs and devices such as Apple TV or Google TV aggregating content across BVOD (and SVOD) platforms, the act of “flicking” isn’t as easy. It’s easy to browse across more than 50 live stream FAST channels on 10 Play, but it takes a few more steps to jump from The Project on 10 Play to Home and Away on 7Plus.
As a result, the audiences of BVOD platforms are far less duplicated. This brings opportunities for advertisers, who can find incremental reach when they move past the “one station” or “two station” legacy logic of linear TV buying.
VOZ Streaming unlocks incremental reach
The introduction of VOZ Streaming is a transformative moment for advertisers. VOZ Streaming introduces a consistent demographic and ID framework across 10 Play, 9Now, 7Plus and soon SBS on Demand. It will make finding this incremental reach easier than ever before.
Leveraging the Virtual Australia dataset, VOZ Streaming reports the real audience of real people reached by a campaign, not just anonymous devices in a murky programmatic ecosystem, or self-reported figures from self-interested parties.
Importantly, it provides the option to trade programmatically, using the common OzTAM ID across all platforms. The OzTAM ID also enables advertisers to report Total TV reach and frequency across BVOD and linear TV, no matter how they bought.
They say the only things for sure in life are death and taxes. I’ll add one more – guaranteed incremental reach to your campaign when you buy BVOD in addition to an SVOD or social video buy, and even more if you buy multiple BVOD platforms.
Not only can it guarantee a lift in the total reach of your campaign, it’s also an option with independent measurement and consistent metrics, based on real people’s viewing, with next-day reporting and the ability to combine reach and frequency with linear TV.
Now is the time for advertisers to take the plunge and tap into the full potential of BVOD as a cornerstone of effective Total TV strategies.