Ratings data shows shift in way audiences watch reality TV

The way Australians watch television has changed dramatically in the past two decades. Streaming services that deliver content over the internet and the development of smart televisions allows people to watch their favourite shows anywhere, anytime.

This has not only changed the way people watch television shows and films, but it is affecting the way television audiences are measured. It is also starting to change the way television networks determine whether a show is a success.

The premiere of Nine’s television 2022 season of Married At First Sight, garnered an audience of 1.9 million. Credit: Nine

The overnight metropolitan TV ratings, once the most reliable metric to determine the success of a show, no longer tells the full story as audiences fragment and busy work schedules delay prime-time viewing by hours, if not days.

Once two very separate worlds, linear TV and digital have collided. And while traditional television viewing is not at the levels where it used to attract millions of people each night, the audience is being make up through networks’ digital sites such as 9Now, 7Plus and 10Play.

Data from the television industry’s measurement provider OzTAM shows this. Nine’s flagship reality television program Married At First Sight, for example, had an overnight metropolitan audience of 869,000 on linear TV when it premiered on January 31. The media industry reported this as the lowest launch for the program in four years.

The initial figure does not include people watching on smart TVs, or catching up on the program. As of February 28, the premiere audience figure for MAFS sits at 1.9 million. This includes people who watched in regional areas, viewed the premiere live on 9Now or have since watched it on catch-up. It represents a 66 per cent increase in audience from the data produced on the premiere night. About 498,000 viewers of that very first show came from people watching the program after it aired.

It’s a similar story for Network 10’s Australian Survivor: Blood V Water. The first fourteen episodes of the program, which began on January 31, averaged about 500,000 in the metropolitan cities on linear TV each night. Those figures double when the audiences watching through catch-up are included. The premiere episode of Australian Survivor had 608,021 metropolitan viewers but the total TV figure from February 28 reports an audience of 1.05 million.

“We are the only industry that in our daily reporting doesn’t include any digital.”

James Warburton, Seven chief executive

Seven is also experiencing large increases in the number of people watching its main reality program SAS, which began on February 21. While the program is averaging about 400,000 metropolitan viewers per night, which would be considered a failure in an old TV world, has already experienced an uplift of 50 per cent on its audience from the first episode. The metropolitan overnight figure for the premiere episode was 466,708 viewers. That number will increase as more people catch-up on the episodes they miss.

Changing the conversation

For their part, commercial television executives are determined to change the conversation and focus on what they call ‘total television’ measure. It’s a figure that they believe is more relevant to advertisers and that provides an accurate reflection of how many people watch a program.

They have spent the last few years investing in a system called Virtual Australia (VOZ), which brings together broadcast viewing on TV sets and smart TVs. But there is still a way to go to normalising this new approach to audiences.

Changing the conversation is why Seven chief executive, James Warburton, joined the board of OzTAM late last month. “We are the only industry that in our daily reporting doesn’t include any digital,” Mr Warburton said. “This notion of putting a number, which is more conducive with how viewing now happens ... is something I’ve been extremely passionate about.”

He said the aim was to ensure that the television figures include digital metrics and how viewing has changed with the advent of streaming services.

Nine chief executive Mike Sneesby and Paramount’s vice presidents Beverley McGarvey and Jarrod Villani, who manage Network 10, also share this view.

“What needs to happen is that at 9 o’clock in the morning when the [audience] number goes out ... we should be talking about making it one number, and that number includes our BVOD (broadcaster video on demand) services and our linear services,” Mr Sneesby said at the release last month of Nine’s half-year results. “It’s the way that we write our revenue.” Nine is the owner of this masthead.