MRG Conference: New BARB The Story So Far

BARB’s research director, Tony Wearn, took the podium on the final day of this year’s MRG Conference in Budapest to update delegates on the state of the new methodology.

Wearn began by conceding that the introduction of the new BARB methodology had encountered more “teething problems” than had been anticipated. He reminded industry figures that the new contractor, ATR, had established an entirely new UK infrastructure from scratch, but made no excuses for the fact that the panel was significantly below strength at the beginning of the year.

He admitted that the early months had been characterised by a number of “data processing difficulties” and acknowledged that the drop in overall viewing recorded under the new methodology had seriously “undermined confidence” in the robustness of the data.

However, Wearn insisted that steps had been taken to increase size and of the panel, which now stands at 4,600 homes, and reassured delegates that quality control measures had been tightened to increase accuracy. He said: “The data has never been under such scrutiny and concern over its quality has reduced significantly over the last few months.”

He went on defend the new methodology as being “robust enough to sustain a currency for trading”, but argued that the quality of the data must take precedence over the size of the panel. He said: “We continue to focus on the data, although everyone else seems to focus on the size of the panel, which is more effective than it has been in the past.”

Wearn concluded the session by reassuring delegates that the new methodology is “more transparent than ever before”.

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