Barb has announced a major initiative to expand its measurement of the YouTube content that people watch on TV sets.
The move will make Barb the first TV joint-industry measurement system in the world to incorporate viewing to YouTube channels.
Barb, through research partner Kantar, has reported how people use a TV set to watch content on YouTube that’s distributed by TV companies since 2021. Working with SeeViews, an independent business that specialises in planning advertising campaigns on YouTube, Barb is now selecting 200 YouTube channels that will become part of its daily audience reporting.
The selection process is primarily based on volumes of viewing and will categorise channels by type of content creator. It’s intended that all selected channels will meet industry-agreed standards for brand safety.
Kantar Media will use audio-matching automatic content recognition (ACR) to identify when these channels are watched by Barb panel members on TV sets. This technique is harnessed with URL detection via the router meters installed in Barb panel homes to confirm YouTube as the source. Audio-matching ACR is the same method Kantar Media uses to identify programme viewing on linear channels and VOD streamers.
Justin Sampson, Chief Executive at Barb said: “We’re now starting to deliver on a commitment to report more of the content people watch on YouTube. This commitment came off the back of an industry consultation which established a buy-side consensus on the need for transparent reporting of content with contextual indicators of quality.”
Barb plans to report viewing of content on the selected 200 YouTube channels as part of its daily audience data in Q3 2025.
The initiative follows a successful proof-of-concept pilot run by Kantar Media for Barb in November 2024. This tracked viewing of 175 videos from 12 popular YouTube channels, featuring children’s content, celebrity YouTubers and music videos. The pilot demonstrated the methodology can be used to identify how people in Barb panel homes watch content on the channels chosen for the test.
