Web TV audiences to be measured by Barb

Web TV is to finally get an audience measurement system, with Barb (the Broadcaster's Audience Research Board) announcing that it will begin monitoring web TV viewing figures.

Barb will initially trial the monitoring in 100 homes in 2011, but this will be rolled out in 2012 to 1,100 homes with this reaching around 2,500 viewers.

"The rollout of the web TV meter demonstrates our long-standing commitment to the development of TV audience measurement," said Bjarne Thelin, Chief Executive of Barb.

"We will continually consider and verify the web TV measurement technique so that we can confirm the appropriateness of this approach for Barb.

"Following this initial stage we'll evaluate the value of proceeding further and with the industry we will assess how this data can best be utilised and applied."

Learning over time

Barb has already been trialling its measurement software in 75 homes and it is hoping that the expansion will help with understanding how users watch web TV content and on what devices.

"The prospect of a measurement which enables web-TV viewing to be examined alongside television set viewing, from a single source, will have a number of applications," said Thelin.

"It's likely that the greatest initial learnings will come from data aggregated over time."