UK’s BARB extends reporting to TV on smartphones

UK audience measurement organisation BARB has extended its viewing reporting of linear TV to encompass smartphones.

Since January 2020, BARB has reported unduplicated reach and time spent viewing across TV sets, tablets and PCs. Data from its total three-screen viewing service has been reported on its website alongside consolidated seven-day TV set viewing.

BARB said that extending its reporting of unduplicated reach and viewing time to smartphones builds on its established census-level reporting of broadcaster VOD viewing across all four devices.

The audience research outfit said that the extension had been made possible by router meter technology being installed in its panel homes. These enable BARB to measure average audience data and time spent viewing in smartphones across the full range of demographic groups, the organisation said.

Using its Dovetail Fusion process, collecting smartphone data from its panel means that BARB can report on people rather than devices, so reach and incremental reach are supported as well as reporting demographic profiles of the smartphone viewing audience, it said.

Scripted reality show Love Island on ITV2 delivers the largest smartphone audience for the week commencing July 5, with a four-screen total audience of 3.8 million Individuals aged four and over, with 412,000 or 10.7% of these viewing on a smartphone. Of the viewers on smartphones, 46.6% were aged 16-24 and 75.8% of viewers were female.

On the same day, ITV broadcast the semi-final of the Euro 2020 tournament between England and Denmark which delivered an audience across four screens of 18.3 million. Smartphones were the second-most popular non-TV device with 213,000 viewers, representing 35.0% of the non-TV device total.

In June smartphone viewing accounted for 0.31% of total four-screen viewing to programmes, a much smaller proportion overall than for Love Island and the Euro 2020 match.