Barb awards new contracts to NatCen, RSMB, Ipsos
January 13, 2026
Barb, the UK TV measurement body, has appointed three agencies following a recent tender. NatCen and RSMB will deliver its Establishment Survey and Ipsos will deliver its panel top-up recruitment. The new contracts will run from 2027-2029.
Barb’s Establishment Survey is a keycomponent of the UK industry’s standard for understanding what people watch. It is one of the largest ongoing annual surveys of UK households and provides information which underpins Barb’s ability to deliver audience figures from a nationally-representative panel of 7,000 homes.
NatCen will be tasked with delivering Barb’s Establishment Survey, with four core objectives:
- To ensure Barb’s panel reflects up-to-date estimates of the equipment people use to watch linear and on-demand TV services.
- To quantify targets for how many homes of different types should be on the panel to ensure representation of the breadth of UK society.
- To provide the UK industry with robust insight into the penetration of – and overlap between – new and established TV platforms.
- To identify homes for recruitment onto the panel.
NatCen and RSMB’s partnership will include redesigning the survey questionnaire to improve interview flow and make it more accessible to participants. RSMB will lead on survey weighting, reporting through a new dashboard and quality assurance.
Both NatCen and Ipsos will be responsible for providing a recruited pool of homes that are willing to be part of Barb’s panel. NatCen will be responsible for recruiting target homes that have taken part in the Establishment Survey, while Ipsos will deliver top-up recruitment that identifies additional new homes that can join the Barb panel.
The methodology for the Establishment Survey will prioritise random-probability, face-to-face fieldwork, while Ipsos will deliver top-up recruitment through a variety of contact techniques. NatCen will also start to test the use of mixed-mode methods as part of the Establishment Survey.
Caroline Baxter, Chief Operating Officer at Barb, commented: “We are delighted to be able to appoint three leading research agencies to deliver Barb’s Establishment Survey and panel recruitment. NatCen has extensive experience of complex questionnaire design and conducting high-quality, random-probability fieldwork for government research, while RSMB is an expert in sample design for media research, including for Barb. Their partnership makes them well-placed to ensure the Establishment Survey is flexible and future-facing, while retaining a high-quality design and implementation. Ipsos is a longstanding partner of Barb and successfully managed the expansion of our panel to 7k homes in 2024. It has the crucial experience and infrastructure needed to run the panel top-up recruitment contract.”