Google hands cease-and-desist letter over YouTube measurement
TV measurement company Barb and panel organiser Kantar Media have suspended their service, set up last year to measure specific YouTube channel views on smart TVs. The move follows receipt of a cease-and-desist letter sent by YouTube’s parent company, Google.
As first reported by the Financial Times, the letter accuses Barb and Kantar Media of breaching its terms of service by accessing data that helps attribute viewing sessions for individual content creators.
Barb confirmed the existence of the cease-and-desist letter to The Media Leader but declined to comment further.
A Google spokesperson said: “YouTube has a long track record of providing access to third parties for research and reporting, and all third parties must respect the necessary Terms of Service and policies when using our API. While the vast majority of our partners, companies and creators adhere to these guidelines, we will take action when these terms are violated, as was the case here.”
Barb began reporting TV set viewing of specific YouTube channels last July. Reporting was conducted across 200 channels, chosen in partnership with SeeViews, an independent business specialising in planning ad campaigns on YouTube, to represent a cross-section of popular YouTube content.
As per Barb’s methodology, it was only reporting on viewing captured on TV sets in the UK. It also reported only on videos that exceed two minutes in length due to limitations in Barb’s ACR audio-matching technology used to track viewing on TV sets.
While the initiative came with several caveats, Barb’s first seven weeks of reporting revealed a stark reality: YouTube viewing on TV is dominated by very young children.
In each of those weeks, between 12 and 14 of the top 20 channels tracked by Barb could reasonably have been classified as aimed at a young audience. The most popular YouTube channel has consistently been the official Peppa Pig channel, which was the only channel in the first weeks of reporting to reach more than 1% of British audiences.
The gulf between the perception of YouTube’s scale and the reality of viewing on UK TV was exemplified by MrBeast. Despite being the most-subscribed YouTuber in the world, his UK channel was found to reach just 319,000 weekly viewers on TV sets, a figure comparable to Really’s The Yorkshire Auction House.
The reporting received mixed reviews from advertisers, who highlighted its limitations and emphasised the need for further development.
The issue has been particularly contentious, as YouTube has increasingly sought access to TV ad budgets, despite failing to commit to the measurement standards set by Barb.
Commenting on the latest developments, Lindsey Clay, CEO of TV industry trade body Thinkbox, said: “It does seem odd that YouTube has spent so much effort trying to convince advertisers that it is TV and so gain the benefits of that reputation, but the moment there’s some TV-like scrutiny, it goes legal to avoid it. If they want to be treated like TV, they need to be transparent.”
YouTube has long had a contentious relationship with Barb. In the days leading up to the initiative’s launch, the company dropped its Barb subscription.
It was not the first time it had done so; The Media Leader previously reported YouTube left and subsequently rejoined Barb during 2023-2024. The back-and-forth followed Barb putting in place new restrictions on how licensees could use its data; the video-sharing platform wanted to integrate Barb’s data into its own proprietary planning tools, but Barb has strict rules governing how licensees can use its data.
In 2023, a row had also broke out between the two organisations when, according to a letter issued to Barb shareholders by CEO Justin Sampson, YouTube could not confirm its planning tools comply with cross-media measurement standards issued by the Media Rating Council, despite YouTube’s public commitment on the issue.