The two papers presented at last night’s MRG Evening Meeting described research which suggests that BARB is having problems measuring multiple guest viewing and 16-24 year old viewing.
Hugh Johnson, head of research at Channel 4, believes that BARB is not cut out for measuring the lifestyle of 16-24 year olds and highlighted some findings of a C4 survey which backed this up. For example, it revealed that C4 viewing share was underestimated by as much 40% for this age group, with BARB recording it as 6.3% and C4 estimating it at 8.8%; the percentage viewing of TV averaged by half hour by BARB was 23.8% while C4 put it at 28.7%; BARB recorded out of home viewing at 7% while C4 estimated 16%; and for a Friday night showing of Friends BARB had a viewing share of 10.5% and C4 said it was 22.6%.
Johnson said that these findings, drawn from 526 interviews with 16-24 year olds, raised questions about the BARB panel: is it balanced? Are 16-24 year olds completing their panel tasks correctly? Are 16-24 year olds more likely to be guest viewers? He did admit, however, that while questions were raised by the C4 survey no answers were found. As a result of the survey C4 and ITV will be meeting BARB to discuss the findings.
Jim Kite, head of research at BSkyB, was particularly concerned by BARB’s measurement of guest viewing in BARB panel homes. Similarly to C4, BSkyB also carried out its own survey. It found that for the first pay-per-view event (the Tyson/Bruno clash last March) BARB estimated that on average only 1.94 adults were viewing, while BSkyB estimated it was nearer to 6.8. Findings were also similar for the other ppv events. For the most recent event, the Night of the Champions three weeks ago, BARB put viewing at 2.21 adults per home (913,000 viewers) while BSkyB estimated 4.14 (1.981 million).
Kite called for BARB to look to new methodologies. He said it must instill better discipline in panel homes, remind panel members to log guests correctly and allow for eight or more guests. Personal meters could also be introduced, as could group guest diaries and panelist diaries.
In response to an invitation to comments from the floor, Mike Goodman said that the 16-24 year old problem was not that BARB was not properly balanced: it was simply that this age group were no good at logging their viewing. Nick Hiddleston from Universal McCann said that guest viewing in pubs was not so important as it was in homes because of the many distractions which would limit ad impact quality. Another comment was that guest viewing in homes may suffer from the same problem, with large groups of people not paying as much attention to ad breaks. They may also be less inclined to properly log people when they enter and exit the room which would lead to over-estimates. Kite responded by saying that guest viewing in home may only be a problem when special events such as the Euro ’96 games draw larger groups together than is normal for guest viewing.
