News & Views

Barb, the industry’s standard for understanding what people watch, today issued an invitation to tender (ITT) for the next iteration of its audience measurement service, which aims to extend Barb’s integration of big data and panel data.

For many years, Barb’s strategy has been underpinned by the belief that audience measurement requires both panel and big data. This strategy, brought to life through Dovetail Fusion, has delivered robust viewing figures for broadcasters’ VOD services since 2018. Barb Panel Plus is the next iteration, replacing Dovetail Fusion, which will integrate multiple data sources into a coherent set of audience-measurement standards.

As part of Barb’s strategic priorities this year, which include enhancing core services through increased investment, it aims to synthesise data available from suppliers with evolving data requirements from subscribers.

Dovetail Fusion currently combines panel data with census data from Broadcast Video on Demand (BVOD) players. Barb Panel Plus additionally seeks to embrace return path data, such as connected TV and set-top boxes, as well as first-party server data.

Caroline Baxter, Chief Operating Officer at Barb said:

“There are more data sources available than ever before, both from media owners and third parties. Datasets drawn from large samples of millions of devices are now seen as invaluable.

Adding census or server datasets to the Barb panel gives us a bigger data sample, and therefore more accurate measurement of audience volumes. Conversely, census or server datasets typically don’t include the important detail about demographics, co-viewing and cross-platform duplication which the panel does. Our subscribers increasingly want fusion across all these data sources.

We are looking for proposals that support Barb in calibrating volumes of viewing using the more accurate figures from census data, while preserving demographic, co-viewing and cross-platform duplication information from the panel.”

For this ITT, the Panel Plus contract is divided into two components which include:

1. Methodology – design of a fit-for-purpose data fusion methodology to bring together panel data with Return Path Data, first-party server data, and BVOD census data.
2. Data Processing and Delivery – development of software to process data according to the fusion methodology, to a schedule and on demand.

Bidders are welcome to bid for one or more of these components. The invitation to tender is available to potential suppliers.

Those looking to submit a tender need to inform Barb by May 9th 2024. The deadline for proposal submissions is August 30th 2024.

For further information, please contact Caroline Baxter: caroline.baxter@barb.co.uk and Khaled Serafy: khaled.serafy@barb.co.uk