For Broadcast April 15, 2010

BARB panel change throws up flawed channel growth figures.

OK, TV execs throughout the land, here’s a question for you all, one that you won’t hear on Mastermind or University Challenge: what happened to the UK television landscape in January this year that resulted in the Liverpool Football Club digital TV channel becoming one of the most successful in the country in terms of recent audience growth?

It’s the same answer that tells us channels like Fox News, Good Food, Living and even MTV are among the least successful. Yes, you’ve got it - the BARB panel changed. The 5,100 households with the BARB box were changed and all-new homes were selected - to the bewilderment of almost every niche channel, whose world was turned upside down overnight.

Even the dumbest social scientist would question how Liverpool’s channel could really increase its Television Rating, or TVR, (its popularity against the population as a whole) from January 2009 to January 2010 by a whopping 351%. The Reds didn’t even win a trophy during those 12 months.

So, if those BARB stats are, let us say, flawed, how can anyone also believe that in the same period, the Fox News audience dropped by 74%, Good Food by 52%, Living by 40% and MTV by 28%?

Looking deeper into the figures, BARB is telling a highly specialised channel like Horse & Country TV that the 750,000 viewers who tuned in January 2009, according to the previous BARB panel, was down to 500,000 in the equivalent period this year. When as much as 40% of your channel’s income is based on BARB figures, such vagaries can throw a monkey wrench into your business plan.

Of course, it is not new to question BARB. Niche channel bosses tell me the BARB methodology is fine as far as it goes, but the TV world has moved on, with more than 300 channels and a new mantra of niche.

The problem with BARB is that it focuses on reach and doesn’t reward niche, nor does it recognise audience relevance. A small but dedicated and engaged audience is worth a lot more to advertisers than a big, unengaged audience, right? Yet BARB doesn’t give niche channels a metric that rates relevance.

The irony is that not only does the internet reward relevance better but another, analogue business does as well. The magazine market has been about niche for decades and the rate cards reflect that.

It’s not all BARB’s fault. Agencies and media buyers will always be interested in the bigger hitters because they can make more money, faster. And then there is ITV - handcuffed by the out-of-date Contract Rights Renewal formula, a stifle on rewarding relevance if ever there was one.

But the latest BARB panel is no upgrade, at least not for many smaller channels, which now appear to be basing their business models on the comings and goings of one or two mysterious panellists.

As one niche channel head said: “The change brings home how fragile the ecology is when you are dependent on an air-time trading model that is stacked against you. If the new panel had two or three more people who watched our channel, it would be like Christmas.” Chalk one up for Liverpool Football Club TV.