Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites. Sometimes, the term is used as pertaining to practices which help broadcasters and advertisers determine who is listening rather than just how many people are listening. In some parts of the world, the resulting relative numbers are referred to as audience share, while in other places the broader term market share is used. This broader meaning is also called audience research.
Measurements are broken down by media market, which for the most part corresponds to metropolitan areas, both large and small.
The Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (BARB) is the organisation that compiles audience measurement and television ratings in the United Kingdom. It was created in 1981 to replace a previous systems whereby ITV ratings were compiled by JICTAR (Joint Industry Committee for Television Audience Research), whilst the BBC did their own audience research.
Currently, BARB have approximately 5,100 homes (equating to approximately 11,500 individuals) participating in the panel. The box records exactly what programmes they watch, and the panelists indicate who is in the room watching by pressing a button on a remote control handset. The data are collected overnight and published as overnight ratings at around 9.30 the following morning for use by TV stations and the advertising industry. The following week, final figures are released which are a combination of the overnight figures with "timeshift" figures (people recording a programme and watching it within a week). This means that with a total UK population of 58,789,194, according to the 2001 census, each viewer with a BARB reporting box represents over 5,000 people.
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