BARB to Roll Out Web TV Measure

UK television measurement body BARB (Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) is to roll out a viewing meter which promises measurement of TV viewed via a PC or laptop.

The service will initially be provided to 100 BARB panel homes during the second half of the year, and will then be used in up to 1,100 homes on the BARB panel during 2012, thereby including an estimated 2,500 people.

Based on BARB's current set-top box technology, the rollout follows a one-year test project which ended in May and identified a number of improvements. For the new service, BARB will use software meter technology from Kantar Media, which supplies the research for the core BARB service.

CEO Bjarne Thelin says that measurement which enables web-TV viewing to be examined alongside television set viewing from a single source, could provide learnings from data aggregated over time. 'The rollout of the web TV meter demonstrates our long-standing commitment to the development of TV audience measurement,' Thelin states. 'We will continually consider and verify the web TV measurement technique so that we can confirm the appropriateness of this approach for BARB.'

Following this initial stage, BARB says it plans to evaluate the value of proceeding further, and in partnership with the industry to assess how this data can best be utilised and applied.

Web site: www.barb.co.uk .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.