OzTAM is looking into the possibility of reporting on online TV viewing as soon as 2011.

B&T Today reports that the company is looking at ways it can use its technology to measure usage of the various networks' online catch-up services as well as mobile television services.

Kate Inglis-Clark, CEO of OzTAM, said that including online and mobile TV viewing in ratings statistics is not just a "technology issue"  but will also require a review of how its audience sampling is conducted and that the data captured can be reported in an accurate and meaningful way:

“We need to consider how we design our panels so we can capture the viewing of the person watching television on their computer, because that is a different style of watching television, and then there’s the reporting aspect in terms of how will this data be used and how it might be folded into a service such as ours.”

Ms Inglis-Clark told B&T that implementation of the online and mobile reporting platforms could still be two to three years away.

OzTAM has already announced that it plans to start reporting on time-shifted viewing from 2010.  This reporting will include viewing from time-shift devices such as TiVo or Foxtel IQ and will release two sets of data to the networks - one set incorporating "live" and "as live" (recorded and viewed on the same day) viewing, and the second set combining "live", "as live" and time-shifted viewing.

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