OzTAM’s measurement principles
Independent, objective and robust measurement is essential to understanding audience behaviour and evaluating media performance. As the provider of Australia’s official viewing currency, OzTAM upholds six core principles that guide how we design, govern and evolve our measurement services, ensuring confidence for the industry.
Transparency
OzTAM is an independent company whose audience data is underpinned by metrics and methodologies that meet accepted and open industry standards.
OzTAM’s neutral, unbiased data is independently collected and produced by an external research suppliers on OzTAM’s behalf.
OzTAM’s VOZ Gold Standard software accreditation system specifies the arithmetical procedures to deliver uniform calculations, as well as standard industry terms and language to use.
Only Gold Standard accredited software may be used to analyse OzTAM’s VOZ data.
The Gold Standard system ensures all clients using VOZ data achieve consistent results, regardless of which accredited analysis software is being used.
Accountability
OzTAM adheres to rigorous corporate governance principles, with all data undergoing rigorous auditing and quality control and subject to broad industry oversight.
OzTAM’s robust quality objectives and framework for benchmarking them are constantly reviewed for compliance and suitability.
Rigorous corporate governance underpins OzTAM’s licences and contracts, which adhere to both the letter and spirit of all relevant regulations, reporting principles and standards.
OzTAM has an independent, non-executive chairman and upholds formal governance processes.
The ABC and SBS television networks, Media Federation of Australia (MFA) and Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) have observer status at OzTAM board meetings.
Continual improvement
OzTAM is constantly innovating to remain at the forefront of audience measurement in Australia and around the world, improving our current services and embracing the latest methodologies and technologies to build new, future-focused measurement capabilities.
OzTAM consults continually and widely across the industry to ensure our service reflects the changing ways Australians are viewing television, and to meet our clients’ needs.
OzTAM’s service has steadily evolved since launch. In 2001, live viewing to five free-to air channels on in-home TV sets in the five mainland capital cities. Today, live and playback free-to-air viewing in the five mainland metropolitan markets (‘TAM’), live and ‘on demand’ BVOD viewing on connected devices nationally (‘VPM’), and Total TV (‘VOZ’) – capturing wherever, whenever, whatever Australians are viewing.
OzTAM’s in-home panel has been progressively expanded as Australia’s population grows and people continue to spread their viewing across new channels.
Households are recruited onto OzTAM’s panel via a large-scale Establishment Survey, comprising 65,000+ interviews annually, that helps define the population to be represented and its characteristics, combined with population estimates from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The survey spans the composition of panel households (age, sex, occupation groups), as well as screens and viewing technologies in the home, to ensure the panel accurately reflects the overall population OzTAM provides data for.
Responsibility
To preserve the quality and integrity of OzTAM data, proprietary data services wishing to work with OzTAM must observe the same levels of accountability and transparency and observe OzTAM’s policies on combining OzTAM data with other research data.
OzTAM data licence agreements have strict usage guidelines in place.
Accuracy
OzTAM delivers the clearest picture of the broadcast content Australians are watching, who is watching, the amount of time they spend watching and how they are watching.
OzTAM retains an independent technical auditor whose role is to ensure the broadcast TV panel performs to specification. BVOD integrations are certified before release, and OzTAM has commissioned KPMG to audit the entire VOZ data flow and handover process.
OzTAM is Australia’s only measurement service that captures and de-duplicates broadcast viewing on all household TV sets (whether connected or not) plus all broadcast viewing on connected devices (BVOD).
Uniquely in Australia, OzTAM combines minute-by-minute viewing data, 24/7/365, with census-level online (BVOD) viewing validated by robust, representative person-level data from a large scale, in-home viewer panel. Panels are essential to provide demographics and co-viewing, and recognise the approximately 20% of TV sets in Australian households are not internet-connected.
Australia is among the world’s largest people metered markets (combined OzTAM and Regional TAM panels) in terms of panel size relative to the overall population.
Accessibility
OzTAM believes equal access to their data benefits everyone in the media industry.
All OzTAM data subscribers – broadcasters, media agencies and others – have access to all OzTAM data on the same terms.
OzTAM’s Gold Standard software accreditation system gives clients a choice of third party (independent) software suppliers.
Connect with Australia’s trusted audience data
For enquiries about OzTAM’s data, services or industry reports, our team is here to help.
