The UK’s Broadcast Audience Research Board (BARB) has added smartphone viewing to its unduplicated reach and time spent viewing data.
Since January 2020 BARB has reporting viewing on TV sets, tablets and PCs on its website alongside consolidated seven-day TV set viewing. Smartphones have now been added the figures.
The organisation said the addition of smartphones is down to router meter technology being installed in panel homes which enable it to measure average audience data and time spent viewing on smartphones across the full range of demographic groups.
“Using the Dovetail Fusion process, collecting smartphone data from our panel means that we can now report on people rather than devices, so reach and incremental reach are now supported as well as reporting demographic profiles of the smartphone viewing audience,” said BARB.
BARB cited smartphone data from 7th July as an example of the new four-screen reporting. Love Island on ITV2 delivered the largest smartphone audience for the week commencing 5th July. Episode 10, which aired on 7th July delivered a four-screen total audience of 3.8 million individuals 4+, with 412,000 (10.7 per cent) of these watching on a smartphone. Of the 412,000 viewers on smartphones, 46.6 per cent were aged 16-24 and 75.8 per cent of viewers were female, said BARB.
