Communications and media in Australia: Methodology

The Communications and media in Australia interactive reports present the key findings and trends across the surveys conducted from 2017 to 2023.

• All percentages are based on weighted survey estimates.
• All percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number. As a result, there may be discrepancies between sums of the component items in a table or chart, and the total.
• Base sizes are shown as the unweighted number of respondents on which the weighted estimates and proportions are based.
• Categories with low sample sizes (less than n=100 interviews) should be interpreted with caution.  
• Terminology of ‘use of an activity’ in key findings refers to measuring prevalence of an activity being undertaken, rather than frequency (that is, the proportion of the population that have undertaken activity at all in the relevant time period). 
• All key findings highlight results that have been tested for statistical significance at the 95% confidence level.
• The ACMA annual consumer survey research:
  • often asked about ‘the past 6 months’ – this is the period before the data was collected. For the 2023 survey, this broadly represents the period from December 2022 to June 2023
  • included some questions that were filtered depending on the respondent’s previous responses (for example, the question about how often specific devices were used to access the internet was only asked of those who reported in an earlier question that they had used that device to access the internet in the 6 months before the survey). This is noted in descriptive language in the chart’s ‘base’ notes and the corresponding methodology tables. Care needs to be taken when interpreting the results so that the data is read in the correct context
  • included some questions that invited a multiple response, so the total responses may sum to more than 100%
  • does not show or excludes ‘don’t know’, ‘refused’ and other responses with only small levels of responses in some cases. These are noted under the charts in the digital report
  • may include some responses, such as the average number of services reported by respondents each year (for example, online video and music streaming), that can be affected by the services that are on the prompted survey list and services that were recalled unprompted. Additional responses recorded under ‘some other service (please specify)’ can be back-coded into a new category and then counted in the number of services used. This may have a small impact on comparisons across years. New categories may also be included in the prompted list of services in subsequent years.

The ACMA annual consumer survey provides information on:

• consumer behaviour
• adoption of, and attitudes towards, media and communications services
• the effectiveness of regulatory interventions.

This research is part of the ACMA research program, which gathers evidence that informs our decisions as a regulator, and ensures we are up to date on market developments and consumer trends.

From 2017 to 2023, the ACMA-commissioned research was undertaken by The Social Research Centre (SRC) using the SRC’s probability-based online panel, Life in Australia (LinA). While most respondents completed the survey online, LinA also included people without internet access or who are not comfortable completing surveys online, who completed the survey by phone. In 2023, the ACMA ran a supplementary survey to provide an information base for understanding consumer trends in use and attitudes about their telco services, and their experience with providers, scams and sources of news. The surveys used the same methodology and were undertaken during the same field work period, but with a different sample. 

Data from Survey 1 (Broadcasting and online content) is used in the How we use the internet, How we communicate and How we watch and listen to content interactive reports. Data from Survey 2 (Telco contact, scams and news) is used in the How we access news interactive report.

The survey data is representative of the Australian population aged 18 and over.

Table 1: Survey 1 – summary of key statistics, 2017 to 2023

^{Note: The 2021 and 2022 total sample size was increased to enable more robust analysis of smaller survey subgroups.}  

Table 2: Survey 1 – sample profile of respondents who completed the surveys (unweighted), 2017 to 2023

<sup>n/a=not available.
* Sample sizes for Australians aged 18 to 24 are small (n<100 interviews), so these results should be interpreted with caution.
† ‘Used a mobile phone’ includes those who used a mobile phone for calls or text messages.
‡ Data prior to 2021 was only asked of those who selected ‘Online gambling’ or ‘Purchased lottery ticket online’ at D8. From 2021 onwards K1 was asked of all respondents.</sup>

^{Note: ‘Metropolitan’ refers to those who live in a state or territory capital city (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, ACT, Hobart, Darwin). ‘Regional’ refers to those who live in the rest of the state or territory (outside the 8 state or territory capital cities), as defined by the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Greater Capital City Statistical Area definitions.}

Table 3: Survey 2 – summary of key statistics, 2022 to 2023

Table 4: Survey 2 – sample profile of respondents who completed the surveys (unweighted), 2022 to 2023

^{n/a=not available.}

The table below details the changes to the ACMA annual consumer survey questions referenced in our published reports. These changes should be taken into consideration when interpreting the findings.

Table 5: ACMA annual consumer survey questionnaire changes from 2017 to 2023

^{Note: Wording of questions and examples listed for some categories are updated over time to reflect consumer and market changes and/or regulatory priorities.}

This research was undertaken in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles contained therein, the Privacy (Market and Social Research) Code 2021, the Research Society Code of Professional Behaviour and ISO 20252 quality standards.

Fieldwork was undertaken in complete compliance with the Telecommunications (Telemarketing and Research Calls) Industry Standard 2017 and all other relevant industry standards.