Task 6 - Audience information

Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites. Sometimes, the term is used as pertaining to practices which help broadcasters and advertisers determine who is listening rather than just how many people are listening. In some parts of the world, the resulting relative numbers are referred to as audience share, while in other places the broader term market share is used. This broader meaning is also called audience research.

Measurements are broken down by media market, which for the most part corresponds to metropolitan areas, both large and small.

BARB

The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) is the official source of television viewing figures in the UK. It is the organisation that compiles audience measurement and television ratings in the United Kingdom. It was created in 1981 to replace a previous systems whereby ITV ratings were compiled by JICTAR (Joint Industry Committee for Television Audience Research), whilst the BBC did their own audience research.

BARB is jointly owned by the BBC, the TP companies, Channel 4, Channel 5, BSkyB, and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Participating viewers have a box on top of their TV sets which tracks the programmes they watch.

Currently, BARB have approximately 5,100 homes (equating to approximately 11,500 individuals) participating in the panel. The box records exactly what programmes they watch, and the panelists indicate who is in the room watching by pressing a button on a remote control handset. The data are collected overnight and published as overnight ratings at around 9.30 the following morning for use by TV stations and the advertising industry. The following week, final figures are released which are a combination of the overnight figures with "timeshift" figures (people recording a programme and watching it within a week).

BARB numbers are extremely important to commercial television stations. The trading model that is used by television companies and advertising agencies depends on the number of people watching the shows, and the commercial attractiveness of those people. The advertising agency will pay the television station a certain amount of money based on the number of people watching a show. The BARB numbers are used to work this out. Higher BARB numbers usually mean more advertising revenue for the television station.