The UK wants to measure YouTube more like TV

For more than a decade, analytics firms have discussed the “measurement gap” between digital and linear platforms. More robust audience data is available for traditional TV fare, but Barb is looking to close the chasm. The U.K.-based measurement nonprofit has announced its plan to bring Nielsen-style ratings to YouTube’s traffic on TV screens.

Like Nielsen, Barb is creating “human panels” by reading router meters installed in select households. Once those numbers are collected, they are presented in the client portal on Barb’s website, creating a snapshot of the typical viewership a program or channel receives over a set period. By extrapolating from those numbers, Barb can draw broad conclusions about overall viewership trends.

Barb already offers platform-level YouTube viewership data. Nielsen has used those numbers to show that Google’s video platform claims more traffic on TV screens than any other content provider. Now, Barb is drilling down into top channels to offer more granular insights for its users.

A screenshot shared by The Drum shows what Barb’s channel-level statistics look like. The official Peppa Pig

YouTube hub, for example, led the listed channels with a .06% audience share via TVs.

Barb CEO Justin Sampson told The Drum that the “initiative is a natural response to the widely-reported growth of YouTube viewing on the TV set – a behavioral trend that’s validated by Barb’s independent audience measurement.” Added Sampson: “By not responding to our clients’ appetite for more evidence of what people watch on YouTube, we risk a growing black hole in our industry’s standard for understanding what people watch.”

The “black hole” Sampson speaks of is a major concern for advertisers who are looking to get involved on YouTube. In a recent survey published by eMarketer, brand reps were most likely to cite “measuring creator performance” as the biggest roadblock for their influencer marketing campaigns.

Nielsen is indirectly responsible for that persistent issue. The firm has more than 80 years of experience measuring TV programming, and it has built up a considerable amount of trust and prestige over that time. Without a way to install router meters on digital content, it became difficult to make meaningful comparisons between TV viewership and YouTube traffic.

But with YouTube becoming a dominant force on TVs, there’s an opportunity to gauge the platform’s viewership via the same metrics Nielsen gleans from traditional networks. Barb is one firm taking advantage of that opportunity — and U.K.-based marketers will be glad to see the change in action.