Why OzTam's Aust TV ratings are still way behind the times

Television man

The TV industry in Australia recently claimed its ratings measurements have now ‘caught up with the times’ – as they now include catch up TV. Here’s a question for them: Do the ratings include Youtube views?

It’s pretty clear now that TV is not the aggregation of the formal channels. There is no such thing as TV, there is only this: All audio visual content streamed to eyeballs = TV.

This means that every video we view on Youtube is TV. Every Video we watch on Facebook is TV. Everything we send from our mobile to our big screen is TV. Every Snap we watch is TV. The real problem the TV industry is facing is it’s limited definition of the market today. Twenty years on and they still don’t get it. Their recent announcement confirms that the thing they are measuring is their share of a shrinking pie. Sure, it’s not in their short term interest to expand their definition of the market, but pretending it isn’t so, doesn’t make it go away.

Yet another reminder that in times of dramatic technological change market share is a fools measure. Put simply, new solutions to old problems mean our real competitors are usually invisible.

You should totally read my book – The Great Fragmentation.