What is Barb and how do we measure total viewing?

Barb is the industry’s standard for understanding what people watch.

Our hybrid approach integrates people-based panel data with census-level online viewing data. Our methodology enables us to deliver inclusive measurement of total identified viewing across all broadcast, VOD and video-sharing platforms, delivered onto and consumed via multiple platforms and devices.

As the past, present and future of total viewing measurement, Barb is uniquely placed to empower transformation of the UK TV and advertising ecosystem, through integrated audience data and actionable insights.

These data and insights fulfil three purposes:

  • To support decisions that are made in the making and distribution of great programmes.
  • To support the planning and buying of ad campaigns and informing on brand and sales outcomes.
  • To inform how broadcasters and other media services operate in the public interest.

Barb has two sources of data:

  1. People-based data: the Barb panel.
  2. Device-based census data for online TV viewing.

To find out more about how we collect data from these sources, please select the relevant boxes below.

To find out how we deliver the collected data to the industry, please select the data delivery box below.

Dovetail Fusion combines our two sources of data in order to deliver total reach of programme audiences across multiple screens. To find out more, please select the Dovetail Fusion box below.