Three brand leaders give their assessment on television in Australia, including what it achieves for them today and what it needs to do for them tomorrow. We want to know the kind of relationship they want with TV sales and ad strategy teams – and if there is room for more direct engagement. What do global digital platforms give them that TV could emulate, in terms of their customer experience as a media buyer? Under the Chatham House rule, this is a chance to hear if some of the big messages from television providers and television advocates – like the need for brand building, the presence of contextual halos, and the superiority of TV attention – resonate. We also ask what they value most from their agencies, and which agency innovations impress them, and where they expect more from agency partners in the next year. There is a quick-fire round to see what our brand leaders accept as valuable methods to make their dollar go further. Expect verdicts on attention benchmarking of media, audience-based cross-platform buying, better alignment of ads to context, the use of search-based intent to optimize TV buying, and shoppable TV.

Ampere Analysis outlines five strategies that will help broadcasters everywhere increase audience reach and viewing minutes on their streaming services, drawing on global best practice and the company’s own insights. You can expect a look at content and catalogue development, windowing (including the impact of streaming premieres or exclusives), and distribution – including the use of FAST. The countdown to broadcast switch-off has started – you will hear how broadcasters can improve their chances of successfully migrating their linear broadcast audiences and ad revenues into a majority-streaming and then all-streaming world. The presentation also highlights three commonplace broadcaster practices that are likely to reduce their chances of a successful linear-to-streaming migration.

The new reality: streamers are here to stay. For media businesses to successfully compete, they must actively participate in TV’s transformation. Mark McKee, General Manager of FreeWheel, outlines the key strategies for success as technology, data and media continue to collide.

Linear broadcast audiences for younger demos are in decline, and we find out how one agency is replacing that reach in streaming TV, using BVOD and AVOD. We want to know what contribution FAST can make to audience aggregation today, and the value of ad-supported tiers from global streaming services like Netflix and soon Amazon Prime Video. Can YouTube’s contribution, when distributing TV-standard content, be added to the list of effective linear reach replacement options? Is the rapidly expanding premium TV streaming marketplace making up for linear losses in younger demos? Find out how the aggregation of fragmented audiences is being made easier.

Broadcast leaders explain how their linear+BVOD Total TV offers could contribute to an increase in total audience and total viewing time for ad-supported TV/premium video in Australia. This is your chance to judge if we can offset linear [broadcast] audience losses with streaming that is equally as effective, and how much of that reach replacement will come from the broadcasters themselves. The conversation will span: Content creation to attract younger demos, and contribution to youth culture and fandom; The future of mass audience event television, including format innovation to bring families and a nation together; Whether new and different audiences can be served with more complementary programming; If larger streaming catalogues mean incremental viewing; Whether live/linear deserves a more central role in streaming services, and how the live streaming UX can be improved; The impact that true, intelligent personalization has on viewing consumption; Turbo-charging the sports viewing experience, especially in streaming; Making the ad viewing experience more appealing for consumers; If all-streaming can be better than all-broadcast for both viewer and advertiser.

Did you know a third of Australians were born overseas? Australia's booming with new migrants. They're driving our economy, but are you speaking their language?  We've got the inside scoop (thanks to our research with Kantar) on what newcomers and multicultural Aussies want from brands. In this session, you'll learn:

• Why trust matters more than price to newcomers
• The surprising places to find them online
• How to show newcomers you 'get' them with powerful content
• Ways to make your brand a true Aussie icon for EVERYONE Don't get left behind! This is your roadmap to success in 2024 and beyond

TV is in a transitional moment, with dollars shifting from linear into digital. It requires huge investment, and leads to fundamental changes in how TV is distributed and funded. This session features two industry leaders working at leading broadcast brands in Australia and New Zealand, who will discuss what the future of locally owned and operated TV will look like if we continue on this current trajectory. We will hear about the future of TV in terms of content curation, distribution, and ownership, as well as the risks and opportunities for brands who have relied so heavily on these media channels to grow their businesses.

We heard from broadcasters how they intend to replace lost linear reach, and now we focus on the contribution of the wider market to Total Video audiences -- and investigate how we unify planning and optimization in this environment. Discussions could include: Whether there is a subset of younger viewers permanently lost to what we know as ‘TV’, who are addicted to short, snacked, low-budget video; Potential incremental reach/frequency from SVOD with ads, and whether this environment offers anything unique (AdUX, fandom, halo effects…); The purpose of FAST for viewers and advertisers; How we unify planning and optimization across an increasingly fragmented Total Video universe; How we understand the incremental value of each new streaming service on the plan, avoiding streaming-on-streaming duplication; Preparing for more live streamed sport – and how we maximise the advertising value of it; How buyers ensure all new (broadcast replacement) reach is effective reach.

Our breakfast briefing explores what brand leaders need from TV and agencies, and now we hear from agency leaders on how their follow stakeholders can help them do a better job. We start by exploring how the best agency-client relationships work to deliver long-term market and profit growth, and three things agencies would like the average client to do differently. We then focus on what agencies want from TV – challenging them to outline what TV must become three years from now, and the changes needed to make that a reality. Along the way you will hear what works for agencies using TV today, and what doesn’t.

Seven will demonstrate how AI is helping it increase viewing time on the 7plus streaming service thanks to highly customized recommendations that result in real-time re-ordering of the content title shelves that viewers see in the UI homepage. The company will explain how the analytical intelligence used for recommendations is also harnessed to accurately predict what the 7plus audience will watch in the next seven days at a granular level (e.g., by demographic, on a per-show basis, etc.) You will hear how better 7plus forecasting contributes to converged linear-and-BVOD trading with guaranteed outcomes – leading to the death of makegoods. Future uses of AI, like determining ad load acceptance per audience segment, and identifying meaningful moments for brand integration in real-time, are also showcased.

Amidst the shift from linear to digital viewing, the current TV ad measurement narrative in Australia primarily focuses on currency, overlooking the crucial link between audience and business outcomes. Adgile’s analysis reveals a decline in Total Video effectiveness as ad budgets migrate to digital platforms, mostly due to the cross-platform nuances in the drivers of business and brand effectiveness not being measured. The result is increased wastage. This presentation will focused on what to do about this problem, offering insights into where the gap exists and how buyers can better navigate the TV measurement to generate better business outcomes.

Foxtel Media has famously promised an alternative cross-platform TV measurement solution for Australia on the road towards enabling the industry to trade on a single, impression-based digital currency. STB return path data will be a key measurement source. We hear the elevator pitch again, get a progress check on the Video Futures Collective, and challenge Mark Frain to answer criticisms like: ‘This initiative causes confusion and undermines efforts to achieve unified reach and frequency on TV campaigns’; ‘A Foxtel STB-derived measurement system is not representative, as the company is not present in all homes’. We also hear about practical challenges such as independent auditing, comparability with other measurement systems, integration into agency buying systems, and handling the complexity of multiple measurement solutions in an Australia-sized market.

80% of Aussies households have a connected TV (CTV). That means there is a growing amount of TV viewership and measurement that already exists in Smart TV’s today through a technology called Automatic Content Recognition (ACR). This provides a view of what and how consumers are watching across the entire screen from linear, streaming to gaming. What does ACR mean for Australian content owners, advertisers and consumers? How can this ‘screen level’ view benefit the industry as a whole?

VOZ is on the final phase of its journey to becoming a reporting standard and trading currency in 2024, with media agencies embedding the VOZ database into their systems and workflows, and third-party providers being accredited for the analytical software needed to process the VOZ dataset. VOZ offers much: wide market backing, integrated linear TV and BVOD measurement for both content and commercials from a single-source panel with de-duplicated audience estimates and data on co-viewing and demos. We hear the elevator pitch on why VOZ is the one answer to Australia’s cross-platform measurement questions, get a progress check on implementation, and then challenge Karen Halligan to explain how OzTAM will help to make a multi-measurement system work in Australia if major buyers back Foxtel Media and the Video Futures Collective. We also ask about the potential use of STB return path data or ACR by OzTAM, and get thoughts on the inclusion of non-broadcaster viewing (e.g. SVOD with advertising tiers like Netflix) within VOZ.

There is a simple remit for our measurement investigations this year – to work out if alternative measurement solutions and currencies are a good thing for Australia and, if they are, explore how to make this approach successful, and if they are not, decide how to handle their presence. You can expect this discussion to span: Whether Foxtel Media is justified in launching an alternative measurement and currency solution; If buyers support the Video Futures Collective, and if there are reservations or outright opposition; What an alternative measurement/currency system would mean for efforts to create a single view of consumers and a unified understanding of cross-platform reach and frequency; How buyers will handle multiple measurement/currency solutions; The extent to which the Foxtel initiative complements or competes with VOZ; Whether the Australian market is big enough to sustain multiple currencies – and if efficiencies will offset costs; Where SVOD-with-Ads and YouTube fit into future Total Video measurement; Buyers’ biggest hopes or fears concerning alt measurement and currency solutions as a concept.