Barb to Take Responsibility for TV Ad Metric CFlight

From next January, the UK's TV audience measurement body Barb is to assume responsibility for post-campaign validation tool CFlight, which provides the total reach and frequency of ad campaigns across all viewing platforms; including those aired on both linear and BVOD services.

Barb was founded in 1981 as BARB (the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board) by the major players in the UK television and advertising industry, and is responsible for delivering the country's television audience ratings. It will take over CFlight, which provides a unified TV advertising metric that captures the 'vast majority' of live, time-shifted and on-demand commercial impacts and impressions across all viewing platforms. Originally created by NBCU in the US, CFlight was adapted for the UK marketplace by Sky, as a joint initiative between Sky Media, ITV Media and 4 Sales.

New functionality has just been launched which allows users to review the frequency distribution of campaigns, and the next major upgrade, due later this year, will allow buyers to assess campaign performance across a total of fourteen target audiences which are widely used in trading. CFlight is complementary to Barb's Advanced Campaign Hub, which provides pre-campaign planning analysis across linear channels and BVOD services, including budget optimisation. From January, all buyers of linear and VOD campaigns will continue to have access to their own CFlight reports; and the top 35 media agencies will continue to have direct access to the CFlight portal, with smaller agencies gaining access through their sales houses.

Justin Sampson (pictured), Barb's CEO, comments: 'The evolution of CFlight into a joint-industry service, overseen by both buyers and sellers of advertising, is an important moment. Complemented by the Advanced Campaign Hub, Barb's total campaign audience reporting will not only cover all major BVOD services, but can also be extended to include pure-play streaming services that are committed to being measured and reported by Barb.'

Web sites: www.barb.co.uk and www.cflight.co.uk .