BARB Emphasises Quality In Newsletter Update

BARB has this month issued a newsletter to the media industry which gives an update on the situation regarding the much-criticised new contract for viewing data collection (see BARB Controversy Continues), which began in January this year. The newsletter insists that the focus at present is on quality control in this, the setting up stage.

BARB says that the number of hours spent watching television has increased to around 24 hours per week for all individuals, reflecting the more stringent controls in place. This is now comparable with the last two years for the main audience categories of All Adults, 15-34 Adults and Children aged 4-15.

Weekly reach has achieved the same overall level as last year and was 93.5% for the week ending 19 May. This has seen a steady increase since April.

The newsletter concedes that the quality control procedures have had the effect of reducing the sample size, so that although a panel of 5,400 have been installed, at present the panel is around 80% of the designed 5,100 reporting level. “We have maintained the level of homes by region, which are broadly on a par with last year.” says the newsletter, “Demographically the profile of the network reporting panel is close to target and the weighting scheme corrects for any imbalances that may occur.”

Additional resources have been enlisted to deal with the contact calls necessary to monitor the data collection. The two main quality control checks are on “nil viewing”- where a panel member or household has not registered any viewing at all- and “uncovered set viewing”, where the television set is switched on but no panel member registers their viewing.

BARB: 020 7529 5531 www.barb.co.uk

Recent Television stories from NewsLine: Party At The Palace Draws 12.3 Million Viewers England Versus Sweden Attracts Over 12 Million To ITV Feature: RI:SE Fails To Shine For Channel 4

Subscribers can access ten years of media news and analysis in the Archive