BARB launches viewing data API beta

UK television audience measurement body BARB has launched the beta of an API which it says will give clients more flexibility into how they access its viewing data.

BARB Launches Viewing Data API BetaBARB (the Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board) was founded in 1981 by the major players in the UK television and advertising industry, and is responsible for delivering the country’s television audience ratings. Since 2018 its audience data – collected from a panel of UK homes – is integrated each day with a census-level count of viewing of BVOD services, using a technique known as Dovetail Fusion.

The new API offers access to three types of linear viewing data: programme audiences, advertising spots, and impacts by time segments. This data can be analysed for all BARB-reported linear channels daily by region and demographic, and is enriched with programme and commercial metadata provided by BARB and Clearcast. BARB plans to build on the API – which includes data from January 2020 and is updated daily – during 2023, including developing the current set-up and adding more data, potentially including viewing on PCs, tablets and smartphones, and non-linear viewing on BVOD, S/AVOD and video-sharing services.

BARB Head of Research Operations Jim Jarrett comments: ‘The BARB API is an innovative solution that has been developed in direct response to the demand from our clients for quick, easy and flexible access to and manipulation of our viewing data via modern software tools. We hope that many of our clients will use the API and give us feedback, so that we can build on and improve it over the course of the next year’. Mr Web