The number of people watching channels on YouTube in the United Kingdom will be reported by Barb as part of its daily audience reporting. Starting in the third quarter of 2025, it is expected to make Barb the first television joint-industry measurement system in the world to incorporate viewing to YouTube channels.
Since 2021, Barb has reported how people use a television set to watch programming on YouTube that is distributed by television companies like ITV and Channel 4, as well as service-level audiences. This is limited to viewing on a television set in the home through an internet router.
Following a proof-of-concept pilot run by Kantar Media last year, Barb is now selecting 200 YouTube Channels that will become part of its daily audience reporting. Working with SeeViews, a company that specialises in planning advertising campaigns on YouTube, the election process is primarily based on volumes of viewing and will categorise channels by type of content creator.
The selected channels will meet industry-agreed standards for brand safety. The aim is to ensure that they are complementary to the YouTube channels measured on non-television devices by Ipsos iris and UKOM.
Research partner Kantar Media will use audio-matching automatic content recognition to identify when these channels are watched by Barb panel members on television sets. Audio-matching ACR is the same method Kantar Media uses to identify programme viewing on linear channels and video-on-demand services. It will be combined with tracking of requests through routers installed in Barb panel homes to confirm YouTube as the source.
“In recent years we have gone beyond broadcasters and beyond linear to deliver a fundamental step-change in our industry’s understanding of how people watch programmes and ads,” Justin Sampson, the chief executive of Barb, explained.
“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.”
Lucy Bristowe, the chief executive of Kantar Media for the United Kingdom and Western Europe, said: “YouTube viewing on the TV set increased by 31% in the UK in 2024. This new initiative, underpinned by our advanced audio-matching technology, will help the industry to understand the growth of YouTube within the context of an increasingly fragmented viewing landscape.”
The data is expected to be of interest to advertisers and media agencies, programme makers, and regulators.
The system will be limited to viewing on televisions, which accounted for 41% of all YouTube viewing in 2024 as measured by Barb.