Barb, the industry’s TV audience measurement body, will take over governance responsibility for CFlight in January 2024.
CFlight is the UK’s first unified TV advertising metric for linear and video-on-demand services without duplicating audiences. It was initially developed by Sky Media, ITV Media and 4Sales in 2021 after the initiative was first created by Sky’s fellow Comcast company NBCUniversal in 2018.
Sky adapted the CFlight standards and methodology for the UK media market and began using the tool in 2019. It now combines Barb linear TV impact data with broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) impressions from ad servers for Sky Q, ITV Hub and All 4.
CFlight launched in beta version to agencies in March 2022, providing combined linear TV impacts and video-on-demand impressions in a complete de-duplicated post-campaign report for the “base audience” of All Adults.
New functionality has now been launched to allow agencies to review the frequency distribution of campaigns. Later this year, 14 widely used target audiences will be added to the platform, slated for a test phase in Q4 2023 and a beta release planned for the following weeks.
CFlight can be used alongside Barb’s Advanced Campaign Hub, which offers pre-campaign planning analysis across linear and BVOD services, including a function to optimise budgets.
Under Barb’s governance in January, the plan is to expand the number of services included in CFlight and the Advanced Campaign Hub. Full Barb licensees can be included “on the same terms as existing participants”, like Disney+ and Netflix, who have become licensees over the past few years.
Barb will also assume responsibility for overall project management for CFlight and establish a joint-industry project team with representatives from the buy and sell-side to ensure its delivery, future service development and implementation of standards.
“The evolution of CFlight into a joint-industry service, overseen by both buyers and sellers of advertising, is an important moment,” said Barb CEO Justin Sampson. “Complemented by the Advanced Campaign Hub, Barb’s total campaign audience reporting will not only cover all major BVOD services, but can also be extended to include pure-play streaming services that are committed to being measured and reported by Barb.”
He added: “As ever, Barb will continue to be guided by the joint-industry principles of fair-and comparable audience measurement.”
