The most important information on the BARB website is their viewing figures this is because the producers of programmes like to see how many viewers are viewing their programmes. Within the viewing figures section you can find a weekly summary of the 5 main channels and multi-channel broadcasters. The data goes back to January 1992.
Viewing estimates are obtained from a panel of television owning private homes representing the viewing behaviour of the 26 million TV households within the UK. BARB also provide TV facts, it includes various facts about Multi-Channel Development since 1992. BARB get money by people subscribing to their website. BARB is responsible for providing estimates of the number of people watching television.
This is an image of the weekly viewing figures. The lowest average weekly viewing channel is Sky Movies Indie, it goes by hours and minutes per person - Sky Movies Indie had one second per person. The highest average weekly viewing channel is BBC One with 29:41 people viewing per hour/minute. The top four are: BBC 1, BBC 2, ITV 1 and Channel 4.
Different companies have different ways of getting money to put into their programmes. For example: The BBC get their money by a TV licence that the public have to pay for every year. The ITV get their money by having adverts in between their programmes. Companies pay ITV for putting their adverts on their channel.
The picture below is from the TV Facts on the BARB website. It shows the top ten programmes from the 2000's.
On the third of January 2000, Coronation Street had 18.96 million of an audience. Eastenders is second but today Eastenders is the most watched.
Advertisers will want to put their adverts on channels to promote their products but they would rather have their adverts on channels that have high viewing figures, this is because more people will see their adverts therefore there is more of a chance that they will get more consumers.
For more information about BARB go to http://www.barb.co.uk/
