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BARB issues first TV Player Report

The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) has released its first TV Player Report, a joint-industry, audited measure of online TV viewing, designed to meet the evolving needs of the UK television and advertising industry

The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB) has released its first TV Player Report, a joint-industry, audited measure of online TV viewing, designed to meet the evolving needs of the UK television and advertising industry.

The report is BARB’s first publication of data for viewing that takes place on laptop/desktop PCs, tablets and smartphones. It focuses on activity at a device level, rather than a person level. The viewing data are generated by an online TV measurement system developed by Kantar Media.

The report currently includes data from TV players All 4, BBC iPlayer, ITV Player, Sky Go, and UTV Player. Data from SkyGo include viewing to all broadcasters available through this TV player. Other TV players and platforms are currently being audited and will be added to the report in the coming weeks.

This on-going development will allow BARB customers to build their understanding of online TV viewing at a time of innovation and growth in platforms, channels and viewing devices. These data will sit alongside data from BARB’s panel of over 11,500 people in 5,100 homes.

The TV Player Report is the first output from Project Dovetail, which is at the heart of BARB’s development strategy to deal with increasing fragmentation. Its aim is to deliver a hybrid TV measurement service which harnesses the power of device-based data that provide granular measurement of viewing sessions, with panel data that provide trusted evidence on who is watching.

“The BBC welcomes BARB’s extension to include a gold standard measure of online viewing,” said James Purnell, director of strategy and digital at BBC. “We believe it is vital to capture how people are now viewing on whatever device they choose and this is a big step towards that goal. We also look forward to BARB’s future planned developments in this area which will ultimately help us to fully understand the complete picture and so enable us to optimise the value we deliver for different audience groups.”

BARB is working on further developments that will enable it to report average programme streams for online TV that is watched live, total time spent watching on demand programmes by originating channel, and consumption of online TV advertising.

Justin Sampson, chief executive at BARB said: “It’s great that BARB is starting to report the level of online TV audiences. The TV Player Report bears testimony to the industry’s commitment that BARB works towards a comprehensive measurement of viewing to television and video content, regardless of the delivery platform.”

www.barb.co.uk