New findings and a progress update have been shared with industry from BARB’s Project Dovetail – the measurement body’s new hybrid measurement system for full cross-platform reporting.
Speaking at the asi European Radio and TV Symposium Madrid last week, Simon Bolus, research director at BARB, said that whilst viewing to the TV players is increasing, online viewing via laptops or PCs is negligible – at just one minute per day, on average, in BARB’s Virtual Meter homes.
Laptop and online viewing is nearly always done in isolation, the conference was told, recorded at 84% of the time in measured homes.
“We are putting quite a lot of effort into measuring a declining form of viewing [laptops and PCs],” commented Bolus, but he stressed on a later panel that the broadcasters – who fund BARB – do want to measure this and that it should not be left to bespoke broadcaster studies.
Nielsen’s executive VP, Megan Clarken, added that it was more about creating an even playing field for the measurement of all video and player services.
Bolus also gave some insight into the next stages of the Dovetail development, explaining that with growth in viewing having shifted from laptops to tablets and smartphones, the next stage – a Kantar app to measure tablets – is key to progress. However, this relies, he said, on broadcasters putting in tags.
Kantar is developing an app for smartphones too but – as Bolus commented, from a research perspective – storing an app on a smartphone that requires individuals to log in may not be practical.
Meanwhile, the industry standard dataset for online TV players’ viewing – which tags websites plus Android and Apple – is collecting data from three broadcasters so far. It remains work in progress, Bolus said, but he shared some initial data.
Generally, two top programmes tend to dominate followed by a long tail – this is not unlike the pattern for the top time shifted audiences, although time-shifted numbers are higher. Dovetail is only measuring programmes so far, and not commercials – but the latter is “in scope.”
