An attempt by Facebook to clear up the apparent confusion around how consumers are actually consuming content has gone awry, with its My Screen report being pulled from distribution after questions over its methodology.

Facebook commissioned PwC to provide a “balanced and independent view of the video market”, saying that there wasn’t a single source of truth telling the market where people are spending their time consuming content.

The report, however, has since disappeared, with PwC and Facebook previously silent on what had gone wrong.

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Now, however, Facebook has revealed there were some issues around “certain sub segments of the data”.

“We purposely selected PwC as an impartial consultancy to provide a balanced and independent view of the video market,” a Facebook spokesperson told Mumbrella.

“The majority of the report uses PwC’s own research data and provides an insightful view of the video ad market. We are aware that PwC are in discussions around certain sub segments of the data. We hope to have an update on this shortly. Until then we have decided to pause the distribution of the report in the market.”

Mumbrella understands the television industry took issue with the report due to its exclusion of connected TV viewing, which accounts for a large portion of broadcast video on demand (BVOD) viewing.

Facebook seemingly stands by a majority of the report though, and the reason for its creation – that is, industry challenges around gaining a complete picture across TV (linear or connected) together with other digital platforms.

PwC also said, despite the pause, it stands by the methodology.

“The majority of the My Screen report uses PwC’s own research data based on a consumer set of more than 3000 respondents. As clearly outlined in the report, the measurement framework for the video landscape in Australia is complex and fragmented. There are data limitations and these caveats have been clearly outlined in the report. We believe we’ve used the very best data sources that are available. We stand by the methodology used in the analysis and the importance of this research. We are currently validating a very small subset of industry sourced data and the report will be reissued once resolved,” a PwC spokesperson told Mumbrella.

The report attracted questions and criticism from those working in television, with Think TV’s Steve Weaver penning an opinion piece for AdNews, saying “it’s clear some of the numbers have been used to inflate, some to hide and others to completely bury the real story about video consumption”.