OzTAM is the official source of television ratings for all metropolitan TV and nationally for Subscription TV.

ABOUT OzTAM

OzTAM manages and markets television ratings data covering all channels for the five city metropolitan areas and nationally for Subscription television.

OzTAM television ratings information is the currency by which television is bought, sold and evaluated. It is used by organisations such as television networks, advertisers, advertising agencies, media buyers and program suppliers. They use the data to assist them in assessing program and network performance and to understand viewer behaviour.

OzTAM encourages joint media and advertising participation to address relevant industry matters. OzTAM is owned by the three metropolitan commercial television networks Seven, Nine and Ten.

OzTAM is responsible for the management of the Television Audience Measurement contract, held by research service provider, AGB Nielsen Media Research.

The ABC television network, Media Federation of Australia (MFA), Advertising Federation of Australia (AFA), Australian Association of National Advertisers (AANA) and Australian Subscription Television & Radio Association (ASTRA) have observer status at OzTAM board meetings.

OzTAM has a Technical Advisory Committee, which comprises representatives from the media industry. The committee is a forum where technical issues regarding the ratings service are discussed with a focus on continuous improvement.

OzTAM viewing panel

Households are recruited to OzTAM's panel via a large-scale Establishment Survey. The Establishment Survey defines the population to be represented and its characteristics.

The Establishment Survey is conducted to a high standard via telephone interviews throughout the year. In managing the recruitment process and monitoring turnover, the panel is an accurate representation of the population we provide data for.

There are two panels: the metropolitan panel which is comprised of 3035 homes (Sydney 765, Melbourne 705, Brisbane 615, Adelaide 475 and Perth 475) and the National Subscription TV panel which comprises over 1000 subscription television homes.

Once a household has been recruited, all television sets are monitored by the meter system. The meter records and stores time, date, television set on/off, channel to which each television set is tuned, capturing all broadcast viewing. All residents and guests register their television usage using a remote control.

Every night the data is retrieved automatically via modem telephone software (silent phone call). The production system performs the collection, processing, validation, weighting and final production of each household's data.

Once the production processes have been completed, the television program information and ratings are integrated. All data undergoes rigorous quality control both electronically and manually. All results are released the following morning and the data is made available to our subscribers via a secure website.

For more information about the OzTAM services see ‘OzTAM Ratings Brochure’