IPA Trends In Television Reflects BARB Changes

The IPA has released its Trends in Television report covering the first quarter of 2002. The figures in the report reflect the “turbulent” audience data produced by the new BARB panel introduced at the start of the year (see TV Viewing Levels Have Stabilised, Says BARB), which has resulted in a fall in total recorded TV viewing and patronage.

However, with the changes having been made to the BARB panel, Lynne Robinson, IPA research director sounded a note of caution: “This report covers the data produced by the new BARB panel and as such is not strictly comparable to the old BARB panel. There are clear differences in these two data sets in terms of overall recorded viewing in both reach and average hours, however the share of viewing between channels have continued to show the same trends across both panels.”

Figures from the new panel suggest the average hours viewing per day per individual is 3.54. Under the old panel for the same period in 2001, this figure was 3.95.

The new figures have also suggested a year on year fall in share for each of the largest terrestrial channels. ITV’s share was down from 28.9% to 25.1% while BBC1 was reduced from 26.5% in Q1 2001 to 25.3% under the new panel a year later. All the other terrestrial channels saw increases in share, however, while other (non-terrestrial) channels an increase from 17.8% to 21.4%. As a result the share for all Commercial for Q1 2002 was 63%, compared to 62% under the old panel in 2001.

IPA: 020 7235 7020 www.ipa.co.uk

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