Barb taps MetaBroadcast and Gracenote to optimize TV audience measurement

UK’s leading metadata management specialist MetaBroadcast and Gracenote, a Nielsen company, announced a three-year contract renewal by Barb, the UK audience measurement service, to operate its combined content ID and genre allocation system from January 2025.

MetaBroadcast will now use Gracenote schedule metadata and unique content identifiers to reduce timescales for accurate programme identification, validation, enrichment and genre classification, as well as improve coverage and accuracy of broadcaster IDs. The inclusion of Gracenote will also allow Barb to better deduplicate content and accelerate reporting from seven to three days after programmes are first made available on linear channels or streaming services.

“MetaBroadcast is delighted to continue supporting Barb by leveraging the robust metadata management capabilities of Atlas, our cloud-based active data platform, and by now be working with premier global metadata provider Gracenote to improve content ID coverage and classification. We recognize the importance of accurate, consistent, and timely programme data that allows Barb to fulfill the needs of its audience measurement customer base. We look forward to continuing our collaboration,”  said Jamie Mackinlay, CEO of MetaBroadcast.

“By leveraging Gracenote unique content IDs and programme metadata, measurement providers can quickly identify and better understand what people are watching across different services and platforms. We look forward to working with MetaBroadcast and enabling Barb to deliver new levels of speed, accuracy, consistency and completeness in their multi-screen audience measurement,”  added Tim Cutting, Chief Revenue Officer at Gracenote.

Barb’s audience measurement relies on a world-class system for identifying and classifying traditional linear broadcast, catch up or streaming viewing. Using best-in-class Gracenote data as a key system input will ensure consistent programme titles and genres, accurate connections between programmes and episodes and linkages to broadcasters’ linear and streaming content across platforms, the company said.