BVOD advertising in Australia: a complete guide for brands

BVOD advertising is advertising that runs inside the streaming services owned by Australia's TV broadcasters, such as 7plus or 9Now. The ads play before or during shows people stream live or on demand, mostly on a connected TV, and they're bought on impressions instead of TV ratings. For a brand, that means a TV-quality spot you can target and measure, with a cap on how often each household sees it.

We plan and buy BVOD for clients every week, so this guide is written from a buying insider. I'll start with what BVOD is and where it sits in streaming TV, then go platform by platform. After that I get into how it's bought and measured. The last part covers cost, and when BVOD is the right call for your plan.

What is BVOD advertising?

BVOD stands for broadcaster video on demand, that is the streaming services run by companies that also hold a free-to-air TV licence. In Australia the commercial ones are 7plus (Seven), 9Now (Nine), 10 (Paramount) plus SBS On Demand. ABC iview is a broadcaster service too, but it doesn't carry ads.

BVOD advertising is any ad bought inside those services. Most of it is pre-roll and mid-roll video, the streaming version of a TV ad break. Networks also sell sponsorships and newer formats such as pause or engagement ads.

BVOD meaning, and why it's also called catch-up TV advertising

When these apps launched, people mostly used them to catch up on shows they'd missed, so the trade called it catch-up TV advertising. The name stuck, but it undersells the channel now. OzTAM's VOZ data for the first half of 2025 showed live streaming drove a 41% year-on-year lift in BVOD viewing. People now open these apps to watch the news or the footy live.

Live streaming TV ads and on-demand ads

A BVOD app carries two kinds of inventory. Live streaming TV ads run in the simulcast of the broadcast channel, usually through dynamic ad insertion, which swaps the broadcast ad for a targeted streaming one. On-demand ads run in episodes watched after they air. Live inventory follows the TV schedule, so it peaks around sport and news. On-demand is steadier through the week.

Where BVOD sits in streaming TV and total TV

Total Television is made up of two buckets: free-to-air (the broadcast channels) and streaming TV (anything watched through an app on an internet-connected screen). BVOD is the part of streaming TV the free-to-air networks own. CTV, short for connected TV, is the screen most of it is watched on.

How viewing time is shifting to streaming TV

More viewing arrives through an app every year, but how much depends on whose data you use. In Samsung Smart TV households, streaming made up 73% of viewing in Q3 2026, with linear viewing down 5% year on year. Across all TV sets in 2025, OzTAM measured free-to-air Total TV at 67.7% of minutes, made up of 58.5% broadcast plus 8.9% BVOD. Subscription and ad-funded streaming services took the other 32.6%.

It's not quite apples for apples. Samsung only sees its own connected sets and counts an app like 7plus as streaming, while OzTAM's panel includes homes whose TVs aren't connected at all and puts BVOD inside Total TV. I've written more about why the picture looks contested.

Either way, both sources point in the same direction. In the second half of 2025 the combined broadcast and BVOD audience reached 87.2% of Australians each month, and weekly BVOD minutes rose 27% year on year to 2.5 billion.

Total TV is the industry's term for broadcast plus BVOD, measured together. Critically, BVOD-only viewers are people your broadcast spots miss. OzTAM reports they add about 11% to weekly reach, and 19.2% across a month among 16 to 39 year olds.

Is BVOD the same as CTV?

No. BVOD describes who owns the content and CTV describes the screen. A 9Now stream on a smart TV is both. On a phone it's BVOD but not CTV, while a Netflix ad on a smart TV is CTV but not BVOD. Most BVOD advertising is served to connected TVs, which is why the terms blur. Our CTV advertising guide covers the wider connected TV market.

What are the BVOD platforms in Australia?

Australia has four commercial free-to-air BVOD platforms, and each network sells its own inventory. This is where each one stood in November 2026.

Advertising on 7plus

7plus is Seven's streaming service. Home and Away lives there, and so does Seven's AFL and cricket coverage. Seven has clearly put a lot behind it. In the six months to December 2025, 7plus advertising revenue grew 15% to $98 million while the wider TV market went backwards.

Advertising on 9Now

9Now is Nine's service. MAFS and The Block live there, and so does the Australian Open and the NRL. Nine reported 9Now revenue up 19% to $225 million for FY25, and an average of 5.4 million Australians used 9Now each month in 2025.

Advertising on 10

If you're searching for 10 Play, it's now just 10. In mid-2025 Network 10 renamed the 10 Play app as the 10 app, and 10play.com.au became 10.com.au. Paramount sells it along with its SVOD servie Paramount+.

SBS On Demand advertising

SBS On Demand is strong with viewers of international drama and world sport, who can be harder to reach on the commercial networks. It is the only publically owned network that allows commercial advertising.

Foxtel Group streaming: Kayo and Binge

Kayo Sports and Binge are subscription services, so OzTAM's free-to-air BVOD figures leave them out. ThinkTV did count Foxtel's streaming apps in its BVOD revenue up to FY22, which matters when you read the revenue chart further down. In September 2026 Foxtel Media became DAZN Media+, and it sells Kayo Sports and Binge alongside Foxtel. Kayo shows AFL and NRL with no ad breaks during play, so brands there lean on formats such as the L-bars and pause ads rolling out through 2026.

How is BVOD bought?

BVOD is priced on CPM, the cost per thousand impressions, where an impression is one ad served to one device. Broadcast is bought on TARPs (target audience rating points), so the two don't compare neatly. There are three main routes to BVOD inventory.

Buying direct with the broadcasters

Most BVOD advertising is still booked directly with each network's sales team. Direct buys open up sponsorships and big events, and you can package BVOD with the same network's broadcast spots. The catch is that each network can only cap frequency inside its own platform.

Programmatic BVOD deals

Programmatic BVOD means buying through a demand-side platform (DSP), the software buyers use to bid on ad space, instead of through a sales rep. Broadcasters mostly sell this way through private marketplaces, where invited buyers bid on a reserved slice of inventory. The other common deal is programmatic guaranteed. It locks in price and volume upfront. Open-exchange BVOD is rare.

The VOZ Streaming marketplace

VOZ Streaming is OzTAM's shared programmatic service for free-to-air BVOD, launched on 25 November 2024. Each viewing session gets a BVOD ID that passes from the broadcaster through a supply-side platform (SSP) to the buyer's DSP. That means one campaign can buy across networks on a single OzTAM demographic dataset and cap frequency across all of them. For me it's the most useful change in BVOD buying for a while.

OzTAM lists Seven and Nine as participating networks along with Paramount, with SBS listed as joining during 2026. The SSPs are Magnite and Xandr. On the buy side it lists The Trade Desk and Nexxen. Google DV360 and PubMatic are also on the list. Access is included for VOZ Total TV subscribers, and there's a BVOD-only licence for everyone else. Note the networks may charge usage fees on top.

What are the minimum spends?

Minimum spends aren't published and are highly dependent on a brand's objectives, addressable audience, desired market coverage, saturation and inventory type. For example, a national campaign targeting people 18+ would have much larger minimum versus a Melbourne metro campaign targeting females 25-39. It's also worth noting that there are no strict minimums per se, but rather recommended minimums based on requirements.

BVOD targeting and data

Targeting is the biggest practical difference between BVOD advertising and a broadcast spot. On broadcast you pick a program and a time slot, and everyone watching sees the same ad. On BVOD you pick who sees it.

Logged-in audiences and first-party data

All four commercial services ask viewers to log in, which gives the networks registration data such as age or postcode. Each network builds audience segments on top of that. Most can also match an advertiser's own customer data inside a data clean room, so neither side hands over raw records. OzTAM says clean-room data matching is coming to VOZ Streaming too.

Targeting by program and by location

You can still buy around content, either a specific show or a genre such as news, which suits brands that care about context. Location targeting goes down to state or metro versus regional, and sometimes to postcode. It's also worth weighting a buy towards the big screen, because a connected TV is often watched by more than one person at once.

Frequency capping and ad loads

A frequency cap limits how many times one household or device sees your ad in a set period. Broadcast can't do this, which is why heavy viewers see the same ad far too often (as anyone who's sat through a full night of reality TV will know). BVOD can cap frequency inside each network, and VOZ Streaming extends the cap across networks.

Streaming ad breaks are shorter and less frequet than broadcast breaks, so each ad has more room to be noticed. Ad loads vary by network though generally sit at around 8-10 minutes across 7Plus, 9Now and 10 while come in at 4-6 minutes on SBS on Demand. Being able to frequency cap and lower ad loads are two of the biggest advantages of BVOD and is a core reason why a smaller budget can go further.

How is BVOD measured?

BVOD is measured two ways: the industry currency counts the deduplicated audience reach and frequency, while campaign data shows delivery and outcomes.

VOZ: the currency for total TV

VOZ (short for Virtual Australia) is OzTAM's measurement system. It became Australia's official TV trading currency on 29 December 2024. It combines a panel of more than 20,000 people in about 8,300 homes with data from around 16 million connected devices streaming BVOD each month. So a campaign running on broadcast and BVOD can be reported as one de-duplicated reach and frequency figure, which is really powerful for planning.

What gets reported on a BVOD campaign

Day to day, a BVOD campaign reports impressions and completion rate alongside reach and frequency. Completion rate, the share of ads watched to the end, is usually high (90-95%) because BVOD ads typically can't be skipped.

When sales measurement matters

Not every campaign needs sales measurement. If the job is building awareness before a launch, it may be enough to hit the right reach and frequency. Where the goal is sales or leads, you need to link ad exposure to those outcomes. AdUnion have built a streaming measurement product called AdMatch™, which does just this.

How much does BVOD advertising cost in Australia?

BVOD advertising costs are quoted as a CPM. The total is the CPM multiplied by the thousands of impressions you buy, so 500,000 impressions at a $50 CPM costs $25,000. Most campaigns start from a reach and frequency goal, and the budget follows.

BVOD CPM ranges

Networks don't publish rate cards but typical CPMs range between $35-$55. The less targeting you have the lower the CPM, with premiums on additional targeting such as programming, demographic or other targeting type.

What pushes BVOD advertising cost up or down

Four things move the price most. Every layer of audience targeting narrows the pool and lifts the CPM. Big live events and tentpole shows carry a premium. Demand peaks before Christmas and again before the end of the financial year. And a direct deal with added sponsorship value usually costs more per impression than programmatic run-of-network.

A higher CPM can still work out cheaper if it reaches the right people with less waste. That's why we judge cost on the outcome as well as the rate.

BVOD ad revenue growth in Australia

ThinkTV's figures show BVOD ad revenue more than tripling between FY19 and FY24. It reached $441 million in the year to June 2024, up 12.7% on the year before, while the wider TV market fell 8.1%. Note the dip in FY23 is a change in what was counted, not a fall in demand, because Foxtel stopped sharing its figures from that release on. FY24 is the most recent ThinkTV BVOD figure I could find.

IAB Australia's internet advertising report, prepared by PwC, measures the market on a different basis. For calendar 2025 it put BVOD at about $0.5 billion, up 7.1%, the slowest-growing part of a $5.4 billion online video market.

Creative specs and best practice for BVOD ads

Specs are mostly standardised across publishers. A 16:9 HD video as an MP4 (H.264) file, with a 1920x1080 mezzanine file with a bitrange at or above 15mbps is industry standard. Creative lengths are 15 and 30 seconds, and anything longer runs mid-roll only. Some networks require ClearAds clearance for specific advertiser categories. Media agencies are able to help navigate this process for advertisers.

On the creative itself, design for the big screen first, since most BVOD impressions land on a TV in a living room. Show the brand early, because viewers can join a live break partway through and make use of audio to counter occasions when people may not be physically viewing the TV (e.g. checking their phone during the ad break).

When BVOD is the right channel, and when it isn't

BVOD advertising suits brands that want TV-quality reach with more control than broadcast gives. It's a strong fit when your audience is under 55 and watching less broadcast TV. It also earns its place when frequency control matters, or when you want streaming exposure tied to sales. And it's the natural partner to a broadcast buy, filling reach gaps among lighter TV viewers.

It's a weaker fit in a few situations. For maximum reach in a single night, such as a big launch or a grand final, broadcast still gets there faster. On a very small budget, spreading across four networks leaves each one thin, and a single well-chosen platform usually works harder. If your audience mostly watches Netflix or Prime Video, BVOD on its own won't find them. That's where a wider connected TV advertising plan comes in.

How AdUnion approaches BVOD advertising

AdUnion is an independent, integrated, full-funnel media agency. In our TV advertising work we treat BVOD as television, planned together with broadcast.

Immersion first, then the plan

Every engagement starts with immersion: more than 60 questions put to several of your stakeholders about your customers and sales cycle, as well as how you measure success. Only then do we decide the split between broadcast and BVOD, and which networks earn a place.

Measuring BVOD with AdMatch™

AdMatch™ is our own streaming TV and audio measurement product. It matches streaming ad exposures to your sales or leads at household level and removes double-counting across platforms. A daily dashboard shows cost per sale by network, time of day or creative. It only works on campaigns AdUnion plans and buys, and it's a paid product, charged as a small percentage of media or a fixed fee depending on how big the campaign is.

Talk to a senior planner

If you're weighing up BVOD advertising, or working out where it fits with the rest of your TV plan, get in touch. A senior planner will come back to you within one business day.