Barb, the UK TV measurement body, has started measuring TV viewing of select YouTube channels. From today, the joint industry committee (JIC) will report viewing figures for 200 channels on the video sharing service, as part of its regular audience reporting. Barb says this development makes it the first JIC in the world to measure viewing for specific YouTube channels.
The measurement body already reported YouTube viewership on TV sets at the service level, but did not track what content viewers were watching on the service. The new initiative, developed alongside Barb’s research partner Kantar Media, involved selecting 200 of the most-watched YouTube channels across a range of genres, including kids content, sports properties and news channels.
The channels were chosen in a selection process devised by SeeViews, an independent business that specialises in planning ad campaigns on YouTube. The qualifying channels were selected based on their volumes of viewing, and meeting industry-aligned standards for brand safety. They do not include channels operated by TV companies, which have been increasing the volume of content they put on YouTube, as Barb already includes these in its reporting of broadcaster viewing.
The new data sets can be accessed in a new weekly YouTube report in Barb’s client portal. The report shows the weekly reach, share of total identified viewing on TV sets, and total minutes viewed for each channel. It also provides a demographic profile for each channel, according to Barb, with information about the age and sex of viewers.
Barb said the initiative continues its expansion of audience reporting to keep pace with changes in consumption habits, following the addition of SVOD services to its viewing figures, including Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.
“We are constantly innovating to keep pace with what people are watching today, without being constrained by the platforms or devices people watch on,” said Caroline Baxter, Chief Operating Officer at Barb. “We’ve gone beyond linear to report audiences to BVOD services, and we’ve gone beyond broadcasters to report audiences to the streamers. Now, using the same techniques we’ve been using for many years to report audiences to programmes on linear channels and streaming services, we’re breaking new ground again. This fresh, independent insight will shine a light on what people watch on YouTube for the first time, starting to answer the questions that are being asked across the advertising, programming and regulatory parts of our industry.”
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The update comes the day after Ofcom released its latest Media Nations report, which showed that YouTube now has the second-highest viewing share of any video service or broadcaster in the UK. The report highlighted the prominence of the Google-owned video service in the daily lives of younger viewers, who turn to YouTube ahead of UK broadcasters when switching on the TV.
And the new reporting exclusively covers TV set viewing, using audio-matching automatic content recognition (ACR) technology to identify when content from one of the 200 channels is being played. Barb notes that this method is only applicable for TV sets because it requires access to the device’s audio output. Kantar Media’s ACR technology is deployed alongside URL detection via router meters to confirm that the video is playing on YouTube specifically.
Restricting the measurement of YouTube channels to TV set viewing also means excluding certain types of content, including YouTube Shorts, which Ofcom found to be the second-most popular form of YouTube content, behind videos up to 15-minutes long.
However, Ofcom’s findings show YouTube consumption increasingly taking place on TV sets. The report highlighted that 41 percent of YouTube viewing occured on TVs in 2024 – and for children this proportion is higher still, with 50 percent of their YouTube viewing taking place on TV sets.
Against that backdrop, it is unsurprising that many of the most-watched channels in Barb’s data set are kids channels. The measurement body released a snapshot from the first YouTube report, showing the top 20 most-watched channels for the week ending 20th July. More than half of the top 20 are kids channels, including Peppa Pig and Bluey – both of whom were more popular than MrBeast and the WWE last week.
Individually the channels’ share of total viewing is relatively (some parents might say enviably) low, led by Peppa Pig’s 0.06 percent share. Collectively however, YouTube accounted for 14 percent of total video consumption in 2024, making measurement of viewing to brand-safe channels of growing interest to advertisers.
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