The television audience measurement system is at a crossroads. Of
course it is. It almost goes without saying. The BARB system has been at
the crossroads - or perhaps that should be a succession of crossroads -
for almost a decade now, so long in fact that everyone has come to
regard this as its natural habitat. In a decade that has seen the growth
of Channel 4, the launch of Channel 5, the emergence of a genuine
multi-channel market and now the advent of the almost unlimited choice
offered by digital, audience research has struggled seriously to keep
up.
Several weeks ago, BARB sources told the industry that the first
audience measurements from digital households would be available in the
middle of October. They failed to appear. Speculation soon gained ground
that they did not appear because the figures for established
broadcasters, notably the BBC, looked very bad indeed.
Whether it has any real basis or not, this sort of speculation strikes
right to the heart of the integrity of the system - and this is a matter
of serious concern in the week that first-round tenders for the next
BARB contract, due to start in 2002, were submitted. Many observers say
that BARB’s handling of the controversy has been less than
impressive.
Last week, for instance, it merely released a ’briefing note’ that
failed to mention the rumour, gossip and innuendo, the implication being
that it was above such tittle tattle.
Surely, at the very least, there has been a breakdown in
communication?
Caroline McDevitt, the chief executive of BARB, strongly refutes this
notion. She also refuses to be drawn on speculative matters at this
stage.
She states: ’We will continue to do things at our own pace and we will
address all of the issues fully over the coming weeks. As our briefing
note indicates, we will be making digital audience data for the week
beginning 7 November available in the market in the week ending 20
November. Any other expectations did not emanate from BARB itself.’
But Doug Read, the strategy director of MediaVest, thinks we’ve just
seen an example of something that’s going to start happening a lot. He
states: ’The future will be about lots of little television
opportunities that we’ll be gagging for information about and BARB will
be under pressure to supply. It is possible to try to busk these things,
but I’d like to see a better and clearer set of guidelines and
information on what BARB is going to measure, what the sample size is
going to be and when it is going to be released. BARB has to work with
the industry and the fact is that people haven’t imagined all of this -
everybody got the same message about when the digital data was to be
released. Of course we can wait a few weeks - that’s not the issue and
BARB knows that’s not the issue.’
Many sources say that BARB will try to obscure the whole issue by
blinding them with science - worries about sample sizes and the
robustness of the data. This, they warn, will be a dangerous option to
take. It might, for example, draw attention to the fact that the
measurement of some mainstream demographic groups in some ITV regions is
already done against sample sizes of 100 or less. On the other hand,
maybe this is exactly the right time to draw attention to this. Maybe
people need reminding that BARB is already dangerously overstretched -
and the core issue, funding, is no nearer to a solution than it was a
decade ago.
A decent-sized media agency pays pounds 200,000 for access to BARB and a
decent-sized profit for such a decent-sized agency is around pounds 2.5
million. In other words, BARB costs the equivalent of 8 per cent of
media agency profits.
The whole cost of BARB, roughly pounds 11 million a year, represents
less than 7 per cent of Carlton Television profits, going on 1998
figures. Or put it another way, that pounds 11 million represents only
0.027 per cent of total UK television advertising revenue.
Many industry observers believe the real scandal is that media owners
will not put their hands deeper into their pockets. BARB staggers on,
spreading its resources ever thinner, bolting on ever more unconvincing
solutions.
Mike Smallwood, the vice-president, marketing, of Flextech, agrees that
all of this is a timely reminder of how important the new BARB contract
is. He comments: ’We do need the robust currency on which so many
investment decisions are made but BARB has to be more fleet of foot to
reflect the modern world. We might well have to move away from the
situation we have now where only 30 per cent of the data is accessed
regularly and 20 per cent is never used. As we move forward, are we ever
going to see a situation in which we have data on 210 sub-demographics
on Bravo digital? The answer has to be no. I do think we might be moving
to a situation where BARB focuses on providing a robust but not so wide
range of data, which can be augmented by other types of research.’
Mark Jankowski, the head of TV research at MediaCom TMB, insists that,
from an advertiser’s point of view, we’re all tending to lose sight of
the bigger picture. He adds: ’What is being missed is the way that
digital TV will change viewing and how BARB should be reporting this
change. We have already noticed a growth in ’other viewing’ which
historically contained non-measured channels. However, within the
digital home this could also contain electronic programme guides,
pay-per-view and interactive elements.
I believe that this will become a significant element in the digital
home.
’BARB must provide us with answers on interactive viewing, ranging from
the basic scenario, where a viewer chooses to tune into a particular
enhanced broadcast stream such as Sky Sports Extra, to a truly
interactive one where the viewer leaves the broadcast environment and
goes on to the internet.
These elements throw up fundamental questions such as ’when is a viewer
a viewer’ and ’when is a channel a channel’. These are not tomorrow’s
issues but today’s. We need a system that can track all the new
scenarios that digital TV will challenge us with.’
