The way audiences watch TV has fundamentally changed over the last decade, ultimately driven by the growing dominance of the global streamers.
While it’s easy for some to claim that linear TV is dead, anyone who paid attention to BBC One’s viewing figures on Christmas Day knows that appointment TV is still hugely popular with viewers.
For Barb, the UK’s industry standard for TV audience measurement, it’s especially important to stay on top of these changes and ensure it’s delivering all the latest engagement information that the industry needs.

In November 2021, Barb introduced daily audience reporting for SVoD and video-sharing platforms alongside its reporting of linear channels and broadcaster VOD services (BVoD).
The company is now working on developing that reporting further to take into account the launch of advertising-funded tiers introduced by the likes of Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+.
“In 2024, in collaboration with the pure-play VoD services we developed the tools necessary to independently assess the penetration of the ad tiers,” Luca Vannini, head of campaign audiences at Barb, tells TVBEurope.
Measuring ad campaign performance
Thanks to this work Barb is now able to report ad-tier audiences to Netflix and Prime Video daily. It has also made these platforms available in the Advanced Campaign Hub, Barb’s pre-campaign planning and optimisation tool where users can forecast campaign performance across linear channels and VOD services.
Barb is also in advanced conversations with Disney, which more recently launched its ad-tier on Disney+, about its inclusion in the planning tool.
The Advanced Campaign Hub is complemented by CFlight, a post-campaign evaluation tool which supports media buyers in assessing the performance of their campaigns across linear and VoD.
Initially a joint initiative between Sky Media, ITV Media and 4 Sales, CFlight moved under Barb’s governance in January 2024, evolving into a joint industry project overseen by buyers and sellers in the same way as the rest of the Barb service. While CFlight captures live, on-demand and time-shifted commercial impressions across all mainstream viewing platforms in the UK, it currently covers broadcasters only.
Extending CFlight coverage is now part of the conversation with the streamers, says Vannini. “With Barb reporting now including the main ad-tiers, we are in a position to extend the coverage of CFlight to the big services, even if they don’t have a linear schedule,” he adds.
The next set of upgrades to CFlight, which are due to roll out as part of a new user interface in 2026, will aim to provide insight into how pure VoD campaigns work, and what they could deliver in terms of reach and frequency. “Extending the coverage of the tool will not just be for the pure VoD players, but also include more on-demand services from the commercial broadcasters,” explains Vannini.
“We’re also working on the reporting capabilities of the tool. Currently, it isn’t possible to see the contribution of one particular broadcaster or service to a campaign. It is just one set of figures across everything. What we’re going to do in the future is allow users to delineate by sales point, so it will be possible to see the contribution to a particular campaign by service.”
Subscription fatigue
Vannini reveals video sharing platforms are starting to emerge as the latest disruptors in the ‘TV’ industry. “From a viewing perspective, we split total identified viewing into broadcasters, SVoD/AVoD and video-sharing services, like YouTube and TikTok,” he says. “According to our latest data, SVoD and AVoD services represent around 18 per cent of viewing on an average day, video sharing services around 20 per cent, and the remaining 62 per cent is broadcast content. That share has been decreasing slowly over time, but it’s still huge. I don’t think that will drastically change anytime soon.
“At the end of the day, people ultimately are quite good at finding what they want to watch, wherever that is, and that’s sort of the direction of travel. When it comes to VoD subscription services there’s only so many services that people will actually subscribe to,” he adds. “Barb’s Establishment Survey says on average, the number of SVoD services people subscribe to is 1.6. Amongst those who have subscriptions, it goes up to 2.4. I’m not sure in the future if people will subscribe for more than that.”
The other challenge, says Vannini, is around what he describes as comparability. “If the objective is to report campaign performance across linear and VoD, they have traditionally been measured in two separate ways. When we bring them together, we need to ensure that we’re doing it in a way that enables comparability, taking into account the specific differences between these services.
“Traditionally, linear tends to be planned and traded based on TV ratings. On the other end, you’ve got VoD that is planned and traded using impressions. How do you make that comparable to linear? These are the two main challenges I think we’re facing, from a measurement perspective and that we are addressing with CFlight,” Vannini concludes.