Australia: Reports – Roy Morgan, Nielsen Online, Pew, WIP

ByLaurel Papworth

At ad:tech earlier in the year, it was announced that, for the first time ever, Australians spend more time on the internet than watching TV. According to Nielsen Online. I was a bit surprised – not much, a bit – because I made the assumption that most people do both. As in, sit with the…

At ad:tech earlier in the year, it was announced that, for the first time ever, Australians spend more time on the internet than watching TV. According to Nielsen Online. I was a bit surprised – not much, a bit – because I made the assumption that most people do both. As in, sit with the TV on as ambient sound, while poking at the laptop keyboard. Seems Nielsen and I are both wrong:

Nielsen Online gives misleading results because their sample doesn’t cover all Australians — an inexcusable error!

In an average week, Australians spend 21.8 hours watching TV while only 9.5 hours on the Internet, making TV easily Australians’ favourite way to be entertained by the media, the authoritative Roy Morgan Research Single Source survey based on a representative Australia-wide sample of 21,846 people aged 14 and over shows.

Roy Morgan (March 31 2008) having a good ol’ punch up with Nielsen’s. God love ’em. By the way, Roy Morgan have the crappiest looking blog ever – Straker should have a word with them, they won’t sell many CMS if they let their clients present so badly!

Naughty Nielsen Online, telling porkies. Lies, damned lies and internet usage figures, FTW!

Two reports I keep an eye on, de riguer I guess, are Pew Internet and World Internet Project. Both are from America, but cover Australia too. Well WIP from Center for Digital Futures (Hi Jeff *wave*) run by Dr Jeffrey Cole has Australian connections. Not sure about Pew.

Here’s the new PEW report (December 14 2008) and the new WIP from end of November 2008.

I’m off to look at the Forrester report. From Steven Noble. Will blog once consumed and ready to regurgitate. Well, you know what I mean. 🙂

Tags: , , , , , ,

4 Comments

  3. Laurel,

    I would have more faith in knuckle bones as an indicator of preference in media than any of the reports cited. Particularly when they average a year’s worth of data into daily or weekly usage without reporting variance or seasonality.

    Next to useless.

  4. I prefer to get my social network usage figures from goats entrails. Afterwards you can sautee them with a little garlic and rosemary. Yum!

    Actually, that really has made me hungry. I’m off to lunch at The Rose in Chippendale, Sydney *waves*

Comments are closed.