How to Subscribe
If you are interested in subscribing to the service please refer to the current BARB rate card (pdf). Then contact us via the 'Contact Us' link at the bottom of the page giving your name and telephone number, the name of your company and a brief description of its business, together with an explanation of your intended use of BARB data. We will then forward a BARB subscriber application form to you. All BARB subscribers pay an annual registration fee, currently £6,840, and a quarterly subscription fee or licence appropriate to the subscriber's category of business as set out in the rate card. New subscribers are required to sign a BARB Subscriber Agreement and pay the registration fee and the first quarter of any other fees in advance of receiving data or BARB-related services.
Reports Available Direct from BARB
As part of the annual registration fee a summary of the BARB Establishment Survey is available to BARB subscribers upon request.
There is some topline consolidated data available on the website within Viewing Figures. More in-depth data, including 'the overnights' is available to purchase by BARB subscribers. This can be accessed either by purchasing BARB data sets direct from BARB or by accessing data from BARB registered data processing bureaux. The data sets require extensive IT software to interrogate, the technical specifications can be found on the TNS website www.tnsinfo.com. A variety of data processing bureaux have created user-friendly software and other products which allow you to interrogate and analyse BARB data. A list of the BARB registered data processing bureaux can be found within the About BARB section. Accessing BARB data from a data processing bureau is the route that is favoured by the majority of BARB subscribers.
The cost of the data itself, or BARB-related services provided by a data processing bureau, is additional to the fees charged by BARB.
Limited Access Registration
If you require a small amount of BARB data and it is for internal purposes only, you may access BARB data via a Limited Access Registration. The limited access registration fee for data costing less than £500, purchased from a BARB registered data processing bureau, is £50 (this is in addition to the data fee). For data costing more than £500 (up to a maximum of £10,000), the limited access registration fee is 10% of the amount invoiced. If you are interested in accessing BARB data via a limited access registration, please contact the BARB registered data bureaux.
Information for Television Channels wishing to be reported by BARB
- detailed information about the platforms the channel is carried by
- the transmission hours
- EPG (Electronic Programme Guide) numbers
- SI (Service Information) code (where provided by the platform provider)
- is there an interactive element?
- if commercial airtime is to be sold? Has an airtime sales house been appointed; which one?
From submission of your application form and channel set-up fee, currently £4,750, to your channel being BARB reported there is a lead-time of four BARB-reporting weeks, commencing on a Monday.
BARB relies on the quality of the transmission information supplied by television channels. It is necessary for channels wishing to be reported by BARB to supply accurate (to within one second) programme logs and, if relevant, commercial logs. The quality of the audience data received by the channels when the logs are sent back to them, populated with the viewing figures, is reliant on this. Details of the file formats for transmission logs and timetables for delivery can be viewed on the TNS website www.tnsinfo.com.
It is also a requirement for channels that are BARB reported to confirm programme titles, to the accepted BARB convention, and assign genres and sub-genres for all transmitted programmes. This is known as the Programme Attribution and Genre Coding Service and is administered on BARB’s behalf by TNS. Once you have subscribed to BARB and requested that your channel becomes a BARB reported channel, a representative from TNS will contact you to explain how the PAS automated on-line system operates.
The data produced by BARB is an estimate of UK television viewing. This is based on a panel which is controlled and weighted to be representative of all UK television households. The viewing data is captured by meters connected to households' television equipment and downloaded every day. Some channels or programmes may provide low audience ratings. These estimates will be subject to much greater margins of error than for broadcasts with larger audiences. This should be taken into account in analysing BARB's viewing figures, especially when analysing sub-demographic audiences. Different levels of assessment (e.g. minute, half hour, four week average etc) may be appropriate in different circumstances.