Barb awards contracts for audience measurement service

Barb has awarded three contracts for its audience measurement service: metadata and interim overnight programme logs to MetaBroadcast and interim overnight commercial spot logs to Clearcast.

All three contracts start in January 2025 and will run for three years.

Barb has reappointed MetaBroadcast to its metadata contract to operate the combined content ID and genre allocation system. The system ensures the consistency of programme titles and genres in Barb’s audience measurement, connects episodes to a programme and links broadcasters’ linear and BVOD content across platforms. The new contract will see a greater depth of metadata delivered, with the support of Nielsen Gracenote. It will also be delivered earlier, three days after programmes are first made available on linear channels or streaming services, rather than the current seven days.

Barb has also appointed MetaBroadcast and Clearcast for new contracts to deliver interim overnight programme and commercial spot logs respectively. Both logs will be available at 9am, to be used alongside the overnight ratings for most Barb-reported channels. They will be confirmed after eight days by the logs provided by broadcasters, as in the current system.

Caroline Baxter, Barb’s Research Operations Director, said:

“We look forward to working with MetaBroadcast and Clearcast to enhance our audience measurement service. Together, these contracts will provide faster and more comprehensive reporting of programmes and ads, giving advertisers, agencies and broadcasters earlier insight into how their programmes and campaigns are performing.”

Jamie Mackinlay, MetaBroadcast’s CEO, said:

“We are thrilled to be reappointed by Barb to continue our long-term partnership in delivering their innovative and market-leading audience measurement services. This is a powerful confirmation that our metadata aggregation, orchestration and operational solutions are delivering for Barb now and into the future.”

David Joel, Clearcast’s Commercial and Operations Director, added:

“Clearcast are delighted to support Barb and the industry in the generation of overnight spot logs in conjunction with our technology partner, Ad Signal. This initiative, aligned with our Attribution and Caria workflow support, will further enhance reporting for advertisers and publishers.”