James Warburton, CEO, Seven West Media, Australia
Transcript:
“Hi, I’m James Warburton, CEO of Seven West Media in Australia. It is no secret that there has been a dramatic shift in how content is consumed, particularly in the last two years. For years, self-appointed experts have proclaimed television is dying. They are of course wrong, and in many cases biased. TV isn’t dying. It is changing. It’s adapting, to changes in how, where and when people want to watch video content.
The move in many countries to reporting total audience number, including +7 days and BVOD has highlighted the true reach of our medium. Total audience reporting shows that our industry is resilient and still as alive and thriving as ever. With online live streaming and on-demand viewing surging to new heights year after year. Measuring and reporting total audience reflects how people really consume our content, particularly younger audiences.
We should be proud as an industry that we have adapted to meet the audiences where they are and in the way they want to engage with our content, which is increasingly online through the largest screen in the house, via connected televisions.
In Australia, when catch-up viewings in its various forms and live streaming are added, programmes can add hundreds of thousands of viewers, not hundreds but hundreds of thousands. It is time to be proud of the unmatched power of television total audience numbers.”