±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Stressing that it would be an open and transparent process, Barb has invited the industry to spend the next eight months deciding the future framework of television's trading currency.

While it provides one of the best TV trading systems in the world, Barb is nevertheless widely seen as having been designed for a different era and unable to deal with the rapid changes in technology and more fragmented viewing patterns that the industry has seen in recent years.

The consultation began with a packed audience of clients, broadcasters, agency TV buyers and researchers, who heard Barb chief executive Bjarne Thelin tell them it was crucial changes were supported by the industry as a whole.

Yet already a gulf in opinions has emerged. Two camps, conservatives and radicals, have opened up with the former seeking to limit Barb's scope while the latter is looking for sweeping changes to its remit.

The crucial issue is whether Barb, which this week began the testing of mobile, so-called personal people meters, should extend its services to cover not just viewing of television outside of the home, but potentially all broadcast media.

Powerful sections of the industry, representing some of the world's largest firms, have urged Barb's shareholders – the UK's largest TV companies and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising – to take notice of the pace of change in the broadcast world and search for a currency covering other media, such as radio.

"As things stand, every measurement system is a silo. Somebody has got to change that and, if the challenge is incumbent on anybody, it is on Barb," Bob Wootton, the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers' (Isba) director of advertising and media affairs, said at the launch of Barb's Future Into View process.

As media convergence reaches new levels, the time has come for Barb to pave the way for research's "holy grail" to become a reality, he added.

"There's a particular burden on Barb's shoulders not to solve it, but to lead it and lead it openly,"

said Wootton. "The idea of people meters seems to me like a jolly good start."

Thelin admitted that Barb faced searching questions about whether its service was fit for the new generation of consumers or whether, as Chris Hayward, ZenithOptimedia's head of TV, described, it was a service "designed for the 1970s and 80s".

Another key issue, Thelin said, is whether the size of the existing panel of 5,100 homes is enough. The size of the panel means that up to 40% of the channels in the UK are not seen to be properly covered by Barb.

The measurement body's panel is also going to be dwarfed by Sky's forthcoming audience research project, Skyview, which is set to include 20,000 households.

Thelin said increasing the panel size to tackle this issue would require at least a five-figure number of households, doubling the cost at a stroke.

Barb is also considering scrapping its existing system of overnight data, which would avoid the embarrassing situation of many channels scoring "zero ratings" and show more accurately how audiences were faring over a longer period.

The biggest issue of all is whether Barb should extend its remit completely and with Isba, which represents 400 advertisers, among those pushing for change, pressure on Barb is immense.

Wootton, sitting on a panel at the launch which began the debate, said Barb risked losing a potential fortune in advertising revenue unless it started treating audiences as "consumers", rather than TV viewers.

Speaking from the audience, Masterfood's regional media manager, Paul Smith, urged Barb's shareholder to "leap forward and have the ambition to cover all digital services".

Yet many believe it would be a big mistake for Barb to change its remit. While saying that "at some point, the size of the panel will need to be looked at", Simon Cox, sales director at Turner, not currently a shareholder, argued: "Barb needs to concentrate on broadcast. We need to use Barb for what Barb is fantastic at and other methods for what they are good at. If Barb goes too far, it will lose its excellence."

Despite concerns about Barb being dated, ZenithOptimedia's Hayward said: "I would like to see a system which happily measures fragmentation but, to use this effectively, we have to be confident about how it's being measured. By increasingly the ambition, do we dilute the quality?"

Nigel Walley, founder of iTV consultancy Decipher, who chaired the discussion, said: "I don't envy them the task. It's highly political and I think there's going to be a few grey hairs by the end of it."

Barb this week began the testing of portable people meters, which could revolutionise the measurement of TV and pave the way for the first cross-media currency.

It has employed a string of research companies, including Arbitron, TNS, Ipsos, AGB Nielsen Media Research and GfK, to battle for a possible contract to replace Barb's existing meters, which measure only TV audiences at home.

Nick North, managing director of GfK, whose company has been at the centre of calls for electronic measurement in radio, said the development was a major break-through. "We're very excited that Barb want to test our meter, although we'd like to avoid a repeat of what happened with Rajar," he said, referring to the fact that the radio body's testing of electronic measurement became mired in controversy.

Barb chief executive, Bjarne Thelin, said the tests would go ahead regardless of whether its debate about change decided that the body should pursue a combined audience measurement system. "We are going to look at every possibility," he said.