Unit 6 - BARB Research - Task 5

1. Unit 6 Task 5
Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board (BARB)
5a)
The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) was created in 1981 to replace
two previous systems; Joint Industry Committee for Television Audience Research
(JICTAR) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) completed their own
research. BARB is jointly owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky and
the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.
They are a company that provide official viewing figures for each channel in the UK.
They have 5100 panel members that have a meter fitted to every television in their
home including laptops, computers and tablets to monitor their television viewing
habits and help estimate how many people would watch each channel, what
programme they would watch or a general genre of television. They commission
three research companies; Ipsos MORI, Kantar Media and RSMB to collect data that
represent the viewing behaviour of the UK’s 26 million TV households. The data from
the meters are sent back to Kantar Media at 2am before being processed and
weighted to be representative of the whole of the UK. They are then released to the
industry at 9.30am each day. These figures are called ‘overnights’ and show all of
the previous day’s television viewing.
BARB viewing data offer clients, such as broadcasters and advertisers, a minute by
minute breakdown of viewing at regional and national levels. This information is vital
for assessing how programmes, channels or advertising campaigns have performed
each week or even by each month and provides the basis for airtime advertising
trading. The advertising agency will pay the television station a certain amount of
money based on the number of people watching a show. The BARB numbers are
used to work this out. Higher BARB numbers usually mean more advertising revenue
for the television station. The trading model that is used by television companies and
advertising agencies depends on the number of people watching the shows, and the
commercial attractiveness of those people.

2. I looked on the BARB website to find out what the most popular programme was in
week commencing 19th June. It was the Euro 2016 football, England V Wales match
on Thursday 23rd June on BBC1 that received 7.678 million viewers.
5b)
I researched the viewing data on the BARB website to establish the weekly viewing
figures for three UK soaps using 300 words for each, with a 10% leeway. The results
were as follows:-
1. EastEnders – BBC 1
From Monday 13th to Sunday 19th June 2016, EastEnders was the top soap to be
watched on television, with ratings of 6.341 million views on its Tuesday’s episode,
6.208 million views on its Thursday’s episode and 6.11 million views on its Friday
episode, as shown in the chart above. This clearly shows that the 7pm episode on
Tuesday to be the most popular, followed by the Thursday episode at 7.30pm and
lastly the 8pm episode on Friday to be the least popular. This shows that the later
the time and further into the week it is, the least popular it appears to be. This could
be that viewers like to watch television earlier on in the evening on a week night and
they could go out more as the week progresses, as traditionally people would go out
on a Friday or Saturday night. A second point I noticed is that EastEnders is usually
on a Monday night, but this was cancelled due to European football. Therefore the
Tuesday viewing of EastEnders might have attracted more views because the
EastEnders audience had not seen an episode on Monday night and were eager to

3. watch Tuesday’s episode.
The second table above shows the EastEnders viewing figures from Monday 30th
May to Sunday 5th June 2016. This clearly shows that Monday’s episode is the most
popular and Thursday’s episode is more popular than Tuesday’s episode. This
contradicts the data in the first table. I believe this is due to the European football
because Monday’s episode is the most popular and viewers want to watch it, as they
have not seen it since Friday, but due to it being cancelled to football, viewers
automatically watched Tuesday’s episode, as if it was Monday night. The rest of the
statistics above coincide with the first table with Thursday’s episode more popular
than Friday’s episode and in both tables, Friday is the least popular, which I believe
is because the audience go out on a Friday night.
2. Coronation Street - ITV
From Monday 13th to Sunday 19th June 2016, Coronation Street had the highest
viewings of 6.16 million, on its Monday’s episode, followed by 5.58 million views at
8.30pm also on a Monday. Subsequently the Sunday episode at 7.30pm had 5.57
million views and the least watched episode was Tuesday at 8pm with 5.38 million

4. views. This showed that people preferred to watch episodes on a Monday rather
than on a Tuesday and this could be to the fact that Tuesday’s episode is on later at
8pm, as opposed to Monday’s normal episode of 7.30pm. Although more people
watched the second Monday episode, I believe that this is due to the fact that they
are already watching the first episode and so just remain in front of the television and
watch the second episode afterwards. Another point I noticed is that Coronation
Street dominated the top spot in three out of four episodes and was higher than the
European football viewings.
To realistically compare viewings, I analysed Coronation Street’s statistics prior to
the European football to establish whether the football had influenced any of the
audience’s viewings. I choose Monday 30th May to Sunday 5th June 2016 as this
was the most recent week that did not show the European football. I noticed that
Coronation Street dominated all of the top five spots on the chart below. Also
Wednesday is the highest in this week at 6.24 million views, followed by both
Mondays, then Fridays, whereas in the first chart it was Monday, Sunday, then
Tuesday. Neither chart give a clear indication as to which day is more preferred than
others except Mondays being the top of the list in both, so that is the most
consistency in both findings. I believe that mixing the episodes over different days
also doesn’t give a clear picture as to what the correct viewings would be. More
research over more weeks would need to be achieved, to determine the most
popular days.

5. 3. Emmerdale – ITV
From Monday 13th to Sunday 19th June 2016, Emmerdale maintained the fourth,
sixth and seventh slot out of the top ten programmes on ITV in that week. The
highest viewings were on Monday with 5.4 million, followed by Friday with 5.02
views and the least watched was Sunday with 4.27 million views. I believe that
people don’t watch television on Sunday as they probably go out at the weekends
and at 7pm are either still out or returning home and getting things ready for their
daily commitments on Monday. I noticed that although it was the second most
popular soap on ITV, it still had higher ratings than the European football, which
showed that viewers preferred the three Emmerdale episodes over football.
As the chart above shows from Monday 30th May to Sunday 5th June 2016,
when all six episodes were shown, Wednesday’s was the highest with 5.19
million views, followed by Tuesday’s with 5.05 million views, then Thursday’s had

6. 4.84 million views, which was closely followed by Monday with 4.83 million views,
then both Friday episodes with 4.6 million views and 4.48 million views.
Again before and during the European football, the viewing data is unclear, as
they show different days to be higher in different weeks. The only programme
that could possibly take some viewings from the data in the first chart would be
the European football as it was one-off events, which were only shown at a
similar time to Emmerdale on Sunday and Monday. Although Sunday was the
lowest viewings at 4.27 million, Monday was the highest episode shown at 5.4
million views, so it doesn’t necessary mean that this is due to the European
football. No other program on any other channel would have likely detracted from
the above figures as Channel 4 receive approximately 2 million views on their
programs and Channel 5 only receive approximately 1.5 million views on theirs,
so they would not deter people from watching Emmerdale.
5c)
The equivalent organisation to BARB in the US is Nielsen based in New York.
They study what consumers watch, read, play, browse and buy in forty seven
European markets, across one hundred and six countries around the world.
Nielsen’s watch division amount to approximately 45% of global revenues and
gives them a complete view of buying trends and media habits on television,
books, music, video games, alcohol, health and beauty, beverages, snacks and
baby products. Major clients include NBC Universal, News Corporation, The Walt
Disney Company, CBS, Google, Nestle, Time Warner, Discovery Channel,
Safeway, Fox and Walmart. A list of clients and partners are shown below.
They can be found at http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/solutions/measurement

7. The chart below shows the number of adults watching television per month.
I researched Days of our Lives, an American soap on NBC television network
that was created in 1965 and has had fifty seasons to date, with season 51 due
this year.
The table below shows total views, household views and women ratings from 13th
to 17th June for the age groups of 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54. It also contains views
for 18-34 and 25-54 age groups. The second table shows the day to day viewings
for that week.
I discovered that they do not contain any male viewings data nor does it contain
any person under the age of 18 or over 54. I believe that they purposely want to
target 18 – 54 year olds as they are more likely to buy products that are
advertised on television and they are the ones that physically shop for goods.
Compared to the UK, I believe this to be a sexiest attitude as men would very
likely buy goods advertised on television and just targeting women, they are
narrowing their market.
I also noticed they the US are more thorough as they compare last week’s, and
last year’s ratings alongside that week’s ratings, so the information is available at
a quick glance. With BARB for the UK statistics the report shows the total number
of viewings and other reports have to be accessed in order to find any further
information which can be time consuming.
I found BARB to be more easily accessible, as it clearly states on their website
how to access the television ratings. On the US ratings site, Nielsen it is far more

8. complicated to access the information and it takes a vast amount of time to
search through all the reports until the information is found. Overall I prefer the
UK system of retrieving information for television viewings as it is quicker, easier
to understand and in a simple format to read.
Ratings Report for the Week of June 13-17, 2016
Category Viewings Compared to Last Week/Compared to
Last Year
Total Viewers 2,074,000 -53,000/-229,000 <—— new low *
Households 1.57/5 -.01/-.13 <—— ties low (4th straight
week)
Women 18-49 Rating 0.54/4 -.03/-.13 <—— ties low ***
Women 18-34 Viewers 91,000 -2,000/-14,000
Women 18-34 Rating 0.27 same/-.4
Women 25-54 Viewers 456,000 -22,000/-98,000
Women 25-54 Rating 0.76 -.03/-.15
* Previous low: 2,081,000 (May 23-27, 2016)
Day-To-Day Ratings Household Total viewers
Monday 1.63 2,211,000
Tuesday 1.66 161,000
Wednesday 1.65 2,128,000
Thursday 1.53 1,963,000
Friday 1.43 1,923,000