In the lecture, you were introduced to how information concerning the 'television audience' is collected by BARB in the UK. In response to this method of data collection, consider the following questions:
- What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of BARB's approach to gathering information about audience viewing habits?
- What alterations/improvements would you suggest to this pre-existing method?
- What might be some of the limitations of your own suggestions?
12 comments:
One of the weaknesses of Barb’s television measurement system it is not recorded if someone in a household is watching a program and is just using it as casual background television and not actually watching it, or leaves the television on and leaves the room to do something else like washing up or other house hold chores then it will still go down on the system that, that social class has viewed that program at that specific time which will give wrong ratings for that program. Another weakness that could be argued is that each household represents approximately five thousand people again it could potentially pose wrong ratings as different social classes may watch different programs compared to that one household that has been chosen to represent them by their choice of program. Therefore if one household which could be a house hold on benefits represents five thousand people who are on benefits assuming they are all watching the same genre of program when the other households could all be watching different unrelated programs therefore creating wrong ratings for the program being watched by the representative household. One of the strengths is the system that if someone is not watching the program or leaves the room it has a system that logs off after a certain amount of time which is good as it would show that the program is not actually being watched however it would be annoying for it to come up every now and again that they have to register through pressing a button perhaps one way of recording if someone is not watching is by having a timer that pops up on the screen than they need to register if they do not see the light in front of the monster, however this would disrupt the television viewing. Therefore they could have a sensory equipment that monitors whether some on is in the room so there would be no need to press buttons to register they are there it could be automatically done with sensory equipment. Another way that could create accurate ratings for television programs would be to issue a Barb television remote in every household across Britain as then we would see what every television set would be watching and at what time. However the costs to install this in every household would probably be a lot of money and be very time consuming to the company as well as every household may not want to part take in this. Another suggestion would be to have a sky type remote where it would record that the household has paused a program, rewound and recorded a program on the same or another channel, at the same time as the live program. This would help with what kind of programs people would want to watch at the same time as others as well as be more accurate that people are actually watching that program as well as the pause buttons it when they leave the room.
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The Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB) is an institution that measures TV audiences in the UK. The BARB system works by taking a sample of 5100 and calculating an imagined audience and applying it to the UK as a whole. This shows one of BARBS many weaknesses, as there is no guaranteed figure from this imagined audience method, only an estimated figure so the results we see are not necessarily fact.
The system is not designed in a way to know whether the Television set is actually being watched by the viewer, as opposed to being on. As the viewer could just have the set on as company or background noise whilst doing household chores such as cleaning. The BARB figures do not take this in to account. This in turn could give the wrong information about a particular social class, due to the BARB samplers being divided up into social classes which again feed into BARBs figures not necessarily being entirely correct.
Going back to my previous point about the sample of BARBS 5100 households, the UK is made up of 60million people, when the two figures are put side by side it’s obvious there needs to be more sample households in order to give a more realistic set of data. Although not every single person in the United Kingdom will have a Television set it’s safe to say that the number will be in the 10’s of millions.
From a business stand point BARB is a positive thing due to the BARB figures being used as a method of generating advertising revenue. The averages taken can tell the various television companies how well their channels are doing.
The various social classes used in BARB allow television companies to have a greater understanding of their target audience and what to show in the future. This also works for advertisers who can see who is watching what and can target potential consumers of their product. BARB also records channel hopping which is a positive thing again for companies due to it giving a more realistic picture of how audiences watch television. This also allows companies to see how effective their channel flow is.
Possible improvements to BARB would be a larger sample of households, to give a more accurate depiction of audiences however supplying every household in the UK would be near impossible and costly but a larger number would improve the data. Creating a way of knowing whether the television set is actually being watched is another needed improvement but there is no real way of knowing, unless samplers had to input something into the system saying they are not actually watching the set.
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The Broadcasters Audience Research Board also known as (BARB) was established in 2002 and is an institution that measures TV audiences through ratings in the United Kingdom. BARB is a quantitive method of data collection that produces figures that can be used for many things. The average ratings tell companies who their target audiences are and how they can cater for them in the future. Also for the commercial sector, BARB is positive because the information gathered is an important aspect when calculating advertising revenue. This system of measuring audiences not only benefits the television companies but also the advertisers, as they can use BARB as a clever way of market research which will allow them to target specific customers with their products. This also ties into the fact that the information generated through BARB also breaks into social groups, this then allows advertisers to advertise specific products to specific audiences.
BARB has estimated that 26.8 million private domestic households in the UK own televisions; this is approximately 97% of households. It then is based upon a sample of 51,000 households in the UK, however this is probably one of its biggest weaknesses. This is because it is not factual and just provides a cross section of all types of households by providing just an average. In addition to this, BARB does not take into consideration ‘background noise’. Bignell (2004) also reflects these views in his work by stating that “numerical, quantitive information does not reveal answers to the questions about why and how people watch”. Some people just have the television on as noise while working, cleaning, or doing other household things they do not necessarily sit and concentrate on watching a particular programme. As BARB’s samplers are categorised into social demographic groups it could also be seen making general assumptions and can provide wrong information about a class. For example a highly paid professional pay watch something not particularly aimed at his/her class, similarly a person in temporary unemployment may tune into a particular programme not expected of them.
This weakness then brings us onto the improvements that can be made, BARB should provide every household that owns a television in the UK with a BARB remote, not only would this improve the outcome but also allow BARB to be fair and equal. However on the other hand a disadvantage of this would be that it would be very costly and not all households may be willing to participate because they may have more than one television set. This could be overcome by allowing each household to have a BARB remote for their family viewing television and maybe an extra button that allows them to know whether the TV is on for background noise or actual viewing.
BARB, also known as the Broadcasters Audience Research Board, measures the number of TV audiences in the UK. They set up a series of ‘panel homes’ as representatives for the population of the UK and their viewing figures are rated.
A weakness of BARB is that it only used 5100 homes to measure the viewing ratings of a channel. Out of the millions of people living in the UK with a television, you could argue that 5100 homes wouldn’t be enough to be generalizeable to the whole of the country’s population. ‘Panel homes’ are also set which means that the institute would only be focusing on the same homes. Different people are likely to prefer different channels and so the recordings could be unreliable. One way to improve this could be by using a larger sample to measure the TV audiences. However, this could be more difficult and time-consuming to record and set up.
Another weakness of the Broadcasters Audience Research Board is that there is no way of knowing if the viewer is actually watching the television. They may have left the room whilst the next programme airs after the previous one they were watching. It is also a possibility that the individual may have just put the television on to any channel as background noise so the viewing data could be unreliable. A way to improve this could be installing sensory equipment into the panel homes to sensor when someone is in or out of the room. However, the equipment could be expensive and some viewers may think it invasive. Another alteration could be a sensor of the television remote to record if someone if watching the Teletext. This could help to show how much a person is really focusing on the programme. Nevertheless, this could also be expensive.
A strength of BARB however, is that it is good way for advertisers to know when the best time to advertise is. The Broadcasters Audience Research Board not only estimates the viewing numbers but also records the type of people watching the show. Because of this, if a large amount of people who have children watch a programme, the advertiser could pick up on this and advertise toys for example. Therefore, it also educates the channel on the type of audience it’s getting and use this to judge what sort of shows to put on in the future.
Another strength of the institution is that it tells the channel how well they are doing. If the viewing figures are low, they might find that they may need to improve the channel for the better. If a certain show has a very low rating then they will know that it’s not very popular and perhaps need to stop it from airing. Therefore it tells the channel if they are doing badly and where to improve.
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There are many strengths of BARB. Such as the strengths consist of that broadcasters can use BARB to see what programmes are being a success and which might need to be dropped or cancelled. They can use BARB to see which programmes are successful and create a hammocking affect where they put two successful programmes between a new programme, hoping that the audience will stay on the channel. Also a commercial sector (i.e ITV) can calculate the advertising revenue via BARB.
However there are many weaknesses of BARB as well. “Numerical quantitative information does not reveal answers to the questions about why and how people watch.” (Bignell 2004: 254) This suggests that people could just leave the television on and go make a cup of tea. It doesn’t know if the audience is paying attention. Another weaknesses is that it is only a sample of 5,100 households and is designed to provide a cross-section of all households, however not every audience watches the same things. Some households might watch more niche or documentaries or the history channel which might not be picked on in the 5,100 households. Another weaknesses is that the audience can watch television on demand on such things as BBCiPlayer or 4oD when say if they weren’t in the house then could catch up on it. This shows as a weakness because it isn’t being recorded via the BARB system.
I would suggest leaving the demographic groups but going deeper into the occupation, such as different types of teachers, how many children the family has and a range of age. However there are limitations which consist of knowing your audience and that could act as being biased towards some programmes and affect the channels advertising revenue, which is if they are commercial. Another improvement might be of BARB being in control of all the televisions in the household. So that if someone was watching one thing it could be recorded and if someone was watching another thing on a different television that could be recorded or if they are watching something via the internet it could be recorded, however this might seem costly because they would have to set up an internet site or contact the BBC asking for permission to put a counter on their website.
Finally, there are many strength and weakness of BARB and even alterations and improvements to the pre-existing method have their limitations, however the best thing that could be done is to make it available to more households instead of just the 5,100 because there are 6 million people in the UK.
Reference List:
Bignell, J. (2004) An introduction to television studies. USA, Routledge. Pp 254
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BARB’s (Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) website provides interesting information about audience preferences of television programs; however its’ accuracy of the statistics provided can be questioned. The idea of BARB is to carry viewing data figures by weekly, monthly or quarterly so the website can be extremely useful to broadcasters who want to take the figures into consideration and apply them for successful scheduling as well as attempt different advertising companies.
The idea of BARB is great, however there are some weaknesses. One of them being a small number of households measured within the United Kingdom. BARB only gets figures from a total of 5100 households in the country so this small sample size out of a 60 million population can not give enough accuracy over television preferences. So it can be argued if the numbers would apply to anyone from different social and age groups.
The other negative thing about BARB is that the system can never be too sure if television is being followed or not. Many people nowadays use television as a background noise as they do a secondary activity in the house. One example could be turning on the television to watch a program that they’re interested in but once it’s finished, they may flick through channels to either find something new or leave and continue doing something else. So the major downside of BARB is that it measures everything but without knowing if the person is actually watching the television or not; the numbers may not be exactly correct.
To improve the statistics of BARB, involving more households in the sample size could be the key. Although one can agree that some Saturday or Sunday night programs, like The X-Factor or Strictly Come Dancing may show the highest numbers, one may also doubt in statistics if they never watch any of these shows. Therefore, involving more people would give more accurate information. The bigger the sample size is, the greater the true accuracy becomes.
The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, also known as BARB, was set up in 1981. It is the organisation which compiles audience television ratings and measurement in the United Kingdom. BARB has approximately 5,100 homes participating. The programmes the viewer watches along with the channels the programmes are on and the times of each programme is recorded. The data is then collected from the households in a quantitative method. From the figures received from the participating households it gives an estimated insight into what everyone in the United Kingdom would be watching as a whole.
Panel homes which have a BARB reporting box are selected in a specific way so that the panel is aiming to be representative of the UK. There are strengths and weaknesses to BARB’s approach of gathering information. Firstly a weakness is that every household in the UK doesn’t own a BARB reporting box, therefore the figures are an estimation, making the data lack validity. Also as the information gathered is quantitative it doesn’t reveal answers to the questions about why and how people watch television (Bignell 2004:254). Another weakness is that BARB only reports on just over 250 channels, therefore not every channel watched is listed. Also the fact that people just casually have the television on in the background whilst they wander off to make their lunch or answer the phone isn’t recorded. It’s just the fact that their television set is on and happens to be on that specific channel at the time which they are away from the television. Also if the people within the household with a BARB reporting box go on holiday or are away from home they are still counted yet there is no-one there watching the television.
Although BARB does have quite a few weaknesses in their approach to gathering information about audience viewing habits it also has some strengths. They have attempted to gain a representative panel by choosing households from different regions, race, age and from different socio-economic groups. Therefore they haven’t just picked 5,100 from one specific part of the UK. Another strength is that the information generated is important for the commercial sector to calculate advertise revenue. This is important to businesses but not necessarily for BARB.
Suggestions for improving BARB’s approach to data collection would be using more households. Therefore they would gain a larger amount of data, increasing validity and being more representative. It will never be completely valid unless every single household in the UK had a BARB reporting box. Although this is unrealistic and wouldn’t even be necessary as channels just need to know what programmes are doing well, they don’t need exact figures. Also there are limitations to this idea too as the cost would be high for every household to own a BARB reporting box and also some households may not want to take part. Another alteration could be for BARB to cover all channels not just the 250 it uses, this would also make the data more representative.
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The Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB) was established in 2002, and has quickly become the fundamental way in which patterns of audience television viewing is measured in the United Kingdom. BARB provides estimations of the number of people watching television at a given time, both on a regional and national level. But is this data truly reliable?
The first process that can be scrutinised is BARB’s supposedly quantitative research method. A reported 97% of the British public now have access to a television at home, and so it would be impossible to compile such extensive research that would achieve precise viewing habits of the population. As a result, the research is based upon a sample of just over 5000 households. Despite this ‘panel’ allegedly standing representative to the viewing habits of all TV households within the UK, one may struggle to grasp how a survey this small can be truly representative.
In order to understand more about whether or not this data is dependable, we need to know more about the viewing habits of the audience. BARB’s research is unable to take into account whether or not these supposed ‘viewers’ are actually watching television. Many of us have been guilty of just putting the television on for the sake of it, sometimes to occupy us when we are doing other chores. As a result, the results of the research may not be as accurate as they could be.
Conversely, the data provided by BARB can reap great benefits to both the networks and the advertisers. Thanks to BARB, the networks are able to see the popularity of the programmes they air, providing them with a greater awareness of what the audiences prefer. Companies who choose to advertise on television also benefit from this data, as they will become aware of the prime times to advertise through customer behaviour. BARB statistics have become very important to commercial television stations, as they provide the companies with the commercial attractiveness of the viewers.
On top of this, the fact that BARB is a non-profit making limited company shows that the organisation has no vested interest in aiding another business. Research is purely done to achieve truthful data, and used to improve the viewing experience for the audience.
There is very little that BARB could do in order to make its data more reliable. Ideas such as the introduction of a system to make the organisation aware of whether the viewing is actually watching the television seem impossible to implement, and so such an idea would be meaningless, as well as expensive. The only thing BARB could do to improve its research method is to use a larger sample, in order to achieve a greater understanding of television audiences.
BARB; The Broadcasters Audience Research Board, measures television audiences and ratings in the United Kingdom. BARB measures audiences by taking a sample of 5,100 households and record what people in the household are watching as well as the channels and times that the programmes are on and is all recorded as quantitative data.
As BARB uses a sample size of 5,100 it could be a weakness as the sample size isn't very large in comparison to the population of the United Kingdom, which is over 60 million. This means that all the information that BARB collects may not be very accurate. To improve this, BARB could create a larger sample size to measure audiences, although this could be time consuming. Furthermore, television viewers don't watch the same things and watch programmes on channels that are less popular that BARB will not be able to record. The BARB figures also don't take in to account that the viewer may not necessarily be watching the television when it's on and might not be in the room at the time that the television is on.
BARB's sample size features viewers from different social classes to make the sample size representative of the whole of the United Kingdom. This could also be a negative as BARB is categorized into different social demographic groups and provide invalid information about the social classes. A viewer from a working class background could have different interests to another person from a working class background.
BARB is successful to broadcasters as they are informed by which programmes and channels are receiving the highest and lowest viewing figures and deciding which programmes to use during prime time and which programmes they may need to get rid of during to the low viewing figures.
Improvements for BARB would be to use a larger sample size to make it more representative of the United Kingdom.
BARB (Broadcaster Audience Research Board) is the official measurement of UK television audiences; this hosts an overall effective website which gives a simple brief insight into which T.V broadcaster receives the most views as well the programmes within these channels.
In relation to BARBS current form of collecting data it is argued that it does not consist of having an accurate measure for data collection. BARB is only based around 5100 homes, selected upon the diversity of their social, cultural and age statuses. It is wrong to stereotype people in this way. As humans we all have an individual personality consisting of traits which spark certain interests, thus how can you justify to say that every 25 year old man who is single will watch the same programme. This is weakness in terms of BARB’s current form of gathering information. However this could arguably be the closest most realistic form of collecting data. Though it is not completely accurate it is the most recognised form of gathering information for channel and programme views. There also isn’t any evidence which proves this form of data collecting is wrong; it is just suggested that it is not 100 % accurate.
Though BARB may not be 100% accurate towards how it measures the audiences viewings it is still used by the broadcasters, this is due to the process of programming selection, trying to create a smooth flowing viewing experience for the audience, this attempting to create a channel, influencing the audience to stay and watch the channel, this effectively upping the ratings, this showing the importance of BARB. This may however just be due to the fact that the broadcasters have no other option or information source to go by, so they may be forced into having to use BARB.
Discussions have occurred that not having your full attention focused on the television set does not count as a proper viewing, evidently BARB cannot cater for this specification, this accordingly classed as a weakness. I however believe that just because you have the television on as a background noise that it still counts as interaction, sure your full attention is not focused on the show but if you are by yourself having the television on allows you to feel like you have company within the house, avoiding that loneliness feeling, perhaps choosing certain channels which caters this requirement there by this can surely be defined as interaction. Therefore this so called weakness may not be such an evident issue when referring to BARB’s data gathering.
For BARB to improve and become more reliable in future it needs to increase the amount of houses it uses as an information source, this would then give a higher number of statistical data to go by, and also make them as an organisation look stronger through this process, whether it be be an increase of 20 or 50 %, this at least one more house with one more television and one more piece of information to go by.
The Broadcasters Audience Research Board – Assignment 2
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“The Broadcasters Audience Research Board” which is also known as BARB and is an organization that measures TV audiences through ratings in the United Kingdom. This institution was established in 2002 and provides estimations of the number of people on a regional and national level which are watching television at a given time. The Broadcasters Audience Research is a very important institution especially for the commercial television stations.
It could be argued that a weakness of “The Broadcasters Audience Research Board” is the low number of houses which are utilized for measure the viewing ratings of a channel. There are included only 5100 homes for this measurement. The United Kingdom is a country with approximately 60 millions of people. I think that 5100 homes is not enough for establish an precise and accurate measurement.
I think that using a larger sample to measure the TV audiences is probably the best way to improve this problem.
As well, can be considered a weakness of “The Broadcasters Audience Research Board” the fact that there is no way of knowing certainly if the viewer is actually watching television. They may do another activities, to leave the room or simply let the TV opened when they are not in front of it.
A strength of BARB can be considered that it tells the producers of channels how well or not is what they are doing. If some things are not going so well for a television channel, it will be announced and then it could have the improvements that it needs.
Besides the fact that “The Broadcasters Audience Research Board” estimates the viewing number, it also records the type of people watching the show. I consider this a strength because in this the advertisers to know when is the best time to air their advertisements.
BARB or the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board is a system that is created to gather information about the daily amounts of television audiences on the different channels. It is established in 2002 and it has been very useful especially in advertising.
The television advertising system has built around the BARB ratings. Broadcasters get money from the advertisers depending on how successful the programmes are. By following the results of the measurement the advertisers know when is the best time to reach the largest audience.
One other strength of the BARB is a wide range of people; there are 5,100 households involving this measurement. These houses are selected randomly and there are people from different social classes and different age groups.
But there are also weaknesses in this system. Each household which participates in BARB represents only 5,000 people in the UK. And just approximately 250 channels are measured and reported. Other channels are counted and informed as ‘Other Viewing’ in the statistics. BARB also shows the information only via its system. For example viewers who watch the programmes via different Internet sources are not calculated to total ratings.
Recording is one other problem. There are time limits for the watching of recorded programmes; if you pass a limit the system will not count views. In turn, the lack of the limits of watching television is problematic too. The system does not know when a viewer leaves a room or does something else when the television is on.
There should be done some alterations to whole system so that BARB could measure the results more closely. One solution could be that BARB would increase the amount of the households in this survey. However it would be difficult to carry out because it would cost a lot more.
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