NewsLine Interview: Tony Wearn, Research Director, BARB
RAJAR’s audiometer testing programme was recently given a £500,000 funding boost, creating the UK’s most extensive fieldwork tests to date and providing TV ratings body, BARB, with the perfect opportunity to pair with its radio counterpart to “put a little toe in the water” and test possible future methods of TV data collection.
Speaking to NewsLine’s Sarah Pearce, Tony Wearn, research director at BARB, explained the research body’s plans to investigate different means of data collection, in order to keep up with the technology driven entertainment world.
Last year, BARB extended its research contract through 2009, in order to give stability and consolidation for its current audience measurement system. The strength of the current system has allowed BARB to “draw in its breath,” says Wearn, and start looking for future audience measurement devices and enhancements to the current peoplemeter system.
The research boss explained: “This is just an opportunity that we took with the RAJAR experimentation and said ‘lets have a look and see to what extent we can benefit from the information that’s being fed back to them’. It’s the start of a longer more protracted programme of activity, we’re looking at personal meters, peoplemeters and return path feed data – like the Sky Panel.
“This is just one part of a wider picture, we’re just taking the opportunity with a clean sheet to look at anything and everything concerned with capturing TV data.”
BARB’s current measurement system involves participants registering their presence while watching television, while the peoplemeter records what is being watched at the time.
Using the current peoplemeter as a benchmark, Wearn explained that any new system must measure up in accuracy at least to the current standard, stating: “Having got that as a benchmark we need to compare any potential alternative, we need to evaluate whether personal meters or return path feed data can provide the same level of accuracy and granularity as we’re currently experiencing.”
He continued: “What we’re really going to find out is to what extent, if at all, these metering options can provide the same level of data that we can currently provide, or if not, what other potential pluses they may have. Maybe either as an alternative, or an add on, or as a supplement to television audience data.”
The key areas of interest to BARB are the potential extra benefits of portable meters, with the capability of the new technology, and its compatability with panel operation, of paramount importance. Wearn explained that the new meters may be useful in measuring TV viewing outside of the home, as a supplement to the current fixed meter system.
“The peoplemeter is a fixed object in the home that registers a fixed TV set,” he explained. “The only form of TV set that we can’t monitor are the literally portable. Increasingly in the future we may be looking at more transportable products, be it TVs through the mobile phone or people loading up their laptop and viewing either stored or downloaded TV. Those forms of TV are not going to be readily captured by a fixed peoplemeter, we’re trying to anticipate ways of viewing TV, as well as an alternative way of capturing that data.”
The BARB and RAJAR collaboration will see BARB “piggy backing” onto RAJAR’s testing system, giving the television ratings body the opportunity for preliminary investigation without the need for a separate, and costly, testing process.
Wearn pointed out that, although the panel size will not be big enough for BARB to make anything other than indicative interpretations of the TV data, they are more concerned with the portable meters’ acceptability amongst panel members. “We will get some TV data back, but we’re not expecting it to be extensively validated against BARB,” he explained. “The sample size isn’t going to merit it. But it will give us a feel for how well TV data is being captured. We’re just putting a little toe in the water at the moment.”