Exciting news for the over-50s - to supplement their diet of Heartbeat and Pie in the Sky repeats on ITV3, they'll soon be able to enjoy a TV channel dedicated solely to music, culture and fashion from the 40s to the 80s.
Vintage TV's fare, centring on films such as My Fair Lady and re-runs of The Old Grey Whistle Test, might provide older viewers with some distraction from the early onset of aches and pains. That is if they can find the channel on the outer reaches of their EPG (if indeed they know what that is).
However, it's unlikely that Frank Windsor or June Whitfield will be rubbing their hands at the thought of the repeat fees for reassuring viewers in ad breaks that 'no salesman will call'. After all, according to TV audience research body BARB, hardly anyone will be watching.
The fact the BARB board comprises mainly big broadcasters, which are obsessed with maintaining audience share, and thus their slug of TV ad revenue, has always meant that updates to how TV viewing is researched have moved excruciatingly slowly.
Even now, with more than 600 TV channels and fringe and specialist options being added to the, sometimes loony, fringes of the EPG every day, the panel of people expected to represent the nation's viewing is based on a pitiful 5100 homes. That's akin to taking the habits of those living in a town the size of Tavistock as representative of the UK as a whole.
It has long been a gripe for niche, special-interest channels that, because BARB's data suggests that virtually no one watches them, trading with agencies is virtually impossible.
Given that media agencies frequently cannot be bothered with dealing with small channels, some of them have tried to deal directly with advertisers. However, as broadcasters know, the door is frequently shut in their faces.
Even when BARB has tried to update its audience panel to better reflect the changing population and viewing patterns, the process has been chaotic. The most notable example was in 2002, when it increased its size from 3000 to its current level, to take account of the rise of multichannel TV. This sparked internecine squabbles between its shareholders, disturbed at the variations between the old and new panels.
Nonetheless, we are assured that BARB's latest panel, set up at the start of the year, has a better representation of different ethnic profiles. This is great for advertisers targeting ethnic-minority audiences, but the news that, apparently, viewing patterns have changed little, leaves a whiff of suspicion that maintaining the status quo was in the BARB shareholders' interests. At least its introduction has been relatively smooth; a sign perhaps of the powers of vested interest at work.
So, BARB's tentative launch of a temporary panel to field-test measurement of TV viewing on PCs and laptops hardly fills me with confidence. The 75 homes (the size of a small housing development) are part of a test to see whether BARB should extend its research to the arena of online viewing.
It seems to me that BARB is being a tad disingenuous by implying through its actions that it remains convinced that audio-visual content will continue to be via a linear channel. This, despite the fact that its own figures show that 27% of adults have watched TV online at some point, and Project Canvas, which could revolutionise viewing habits, has been given the green light.
As well as being bad news for the pension income of Britain's 80-something theatrical royalty, more worryingly, BARB seems to be denying the inexorable advance of convergence.
- Jeremy Lee is associate editor of Marketing. Read his blog at marketingmagazine.co.uk
30 SECONDS ON ... BARB
- BARB is a not-for-profit company set up in 1981 to provide the industry-standard television audience measurement service for the advertising industry and broadcasters in the UK. It is owned by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BSkyB and the IPA.
- The 5100 'reporting panel', which is claimed to be representative of each ITV and BBC region, is selected via a random-probabliity survey that involves about 53,000 interviews each year.
- This survey is also a source of television population data, such as the number of multi-channel homes.
- When a household agrees to join the panel, its TV sets and other watching equipment are electronically monitored using meters placed close to each TV. All residents and guests register their presence in a room by pressing a button on the meter.
- BARB outsources the service to research companies: RSMB designs the panel; Ipsos MORI runs the survey; and TNS is responsible for recruiting and metering the panel, and data collection and processing.