To wrap up 2023, Mediaweek is looking at the biggest trends, events, platforms, and brands of the year. Welcome to Mediaweek’s A to Z of 2023 … and beyond.
By Lucy Formosa Morgan, managing director, Magna.
Hits & Misses of TV Measurement this year:
VOZ… it’s so close yet still so far.
Whereas in previous years when we’ve seen linear TV audiences decline, demand has tended to stay relatively strong; this year however spend started migrating away to alternative channels, platforms, devices at scale. Without a measurement solution readily available that factors in both linear and BVOD from a TV network perspective, spend has shifted out.
2023 has been a real turning point for the TV networks.
We’ve spoken about VOZ for years now and this year was touted to be the year it finally launched, but it hasn’t properly. The longer it takes for VOZ Streaming to come to market and the planning tools to be gold standard certified, the greater the impact on the networks spend as advertisers and agencies look to alternative channels and alternative measurement solutions.
The delays have also allowed the playing field to evolve and move on. Total TV isn’t just about linear TV, BVOD and YouTube anymore. There are now so many other content options available to consumers such as SVOD with ad tiers (with more launching over the coming months) and FAST channels – all which are looking to attract spend away from BVOD and linear. What we need is measurement take encompasses the full ecosystem.
VOZ will still play an important role when it does finally launch properly to the market but it won’t be the standalone option or saviour that the networks and agencies were originally hoping it would be.
New innovations:
Although linear TV will always have a place on schedules, with the increasing number of Connected TVs, the focus and share of TV spend will naturally migrate more to CTV over the coming years. With linear TV taking a lesser role, that means alternative cross platform measurement tools can start to come to the fore. As we settle into 2024, I’d expect a number of measurement players to test the water and kick off conversations in Australia.
If you look at the US for example, the networks recently granted conditional certification for audience-measurement tech players VideoAmp, iSpot & Comscore. All are looking to challenge Nielsen’s status as the industry’s primary audience measurement provider and effectively create multiple players and multiple currencies in that market.
In Australia our challenge is as an industry, we need to collectively come together, similar to the US, to work through methodologies, currencies, data, processes, testing, etc. of alternative players. It’s not going to be an overnight evolution (much as I’d love that), but we need to accept that change is coming and lean in.
See also: Mediaweek’s A to Z of 2023: S is for Sustainability
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Top Image: Lucy Formosa Morgan