BARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board)

BARB (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) is an organisation that is made responsible for showing the measurement of UK television show estimates for the number of views by audiences. This includes which channels and programmes are being watched, when they are watched and the type of people who are viewing at any one time. The number of views counts only for when the viewer has been watching for at least a minute. Viewing data is collected second-by-second and delivered on a minute-by-minute basis. Viewing at anything other than normal speed, such as; fast forwarding, or recording the programme, is not shown on the view count. The data is available for reporting nationally and at ITV and BBC regional level., with homes representing the viewing's of up to 25 million television households (just within the UK).

From looking at the charts of 1992-2009, it shows that BBC1 has been the most successful organisation; being viewed by 29,782 people; a total of 52.2%:

 BARB is very essential for the television organisations as it shows how many people are watching their television shows. The reason it is essential is that for a television organisation to succeed and actually do well, they need a lot of viewers to watch the show. If they did not have any viewers of the show then their organisation would not be able to receive any money; meaning that they cannot continue funding for the show, so it concludes to having no show. BARB is a non-profit making limited company, funded by the major players in the industry it supports - BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BSkyB and the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising). Other broadcasters and a variety of businesses, for example research specialists, publishers and advertisers also contribute to the cost of running BARB by subscribing to the service.

For our media group, we are making a music video meaning we would have to look at the most successful music channel would be and the one most suitable one to us (according to BARB). As a group we decided that our music video would be shown on the music channel 'MTV Dance' as it would fit in perfectly in the category of 'dance'. If our music video was to do well and succeed we had to do a bit of research on that music channels ratings through BARB. As the figures show above, 'Big Tunes' on a Thursday night at 5:48PM is the most viewed music channel on MTV Dance with approximately 13,000 views. This means that if we were to play our music video on a channel then 'Big Tunes' would be the best one to try and show it on as it has the most views. Also, with more views it would mean that our music video would have more chance of global reach.