How is TV viewing measured?

26th February, 2009

Television viewing has one of the most rigorous measurement systems in the world: The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board (BARB). No other marketing medium’s use is subjected to the same high level of scrutiny.

BARB’s data is the ‘currency’ for the industry and has to be intensely quality controlled, audited, highly representative and statistically accurate. It provides a TV advertising agengy like us with deep insight into viewers’ behaviour and attitudes.

BARB uses a panel of 5,100 homes, which returns data from just over 11,500 individual viewers. The panel is designed to be representative of the whole of the UK with people recruited from every demographic profile of the population. It measures all the different in-home viewing environments across multiple TV sets and the various different modes of TV delivery. All in all, BARB data is as thorough as is currently possible and almost impossible to bias.

Having this data available to us means that we can accurately measure the effectiveness of television advertising and unlike other above the line mediums we know how many people have seen your TV ad.

Jason Edge