UK to track TV viewing on tablets

Britain will begin tracking tablet viewing of television shows over coming months.

The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, funded by the country’s four terrestrial channel providers plus BSkyB, will monitor viewing habits on iPads and Android devices, having made the first “capture” of data last month.

“The ability to track how our panel members watch television on their tablets is a great step forward,” said BARB CEO Justin Sampson in a statement.

According to BARB, current industry-accepted estimates are that up to two percent of all TV viewing time is done on computer devices.

Last year, Nielsen revealed it would be rolling out a system to measure broadband, Xbox and eventually iPads in the US, but nothing yet has been formally announced.

In Australia current OzTAM panels includes sample ‘mobile households’ and is working towards the complexities of catch-up data.

Doug Peiffer, CEO of OzTAM has previously noted the different measurements of video views, stating last year, “Those numbers are usually Stream Starts. That’s when you go into the player and you start viewing something, that counts as a viewer. It’s a Start. If you come to the next Pre-Roll, that’s another Start. You Start the content, Stop the content. That accumulates, it’s not a new viewer or a unique viewer. That number needs to be discounted and that’s what we’re working on.”

Source: Hollywood Reporter