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BARB’S Chief Executive, Caroline McDevitt, talks to John Morrell about her liking for John Humphrys, water-cooler television and the myth that we are watching less TV.
Caroline McDevitt has a problem. She urgently requires one thousand perfectly demographed souls who enjoy pushing buttons in front of a TV set.
At the heart of BARB – Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board – is The Panel who repre- sent the viewing behaviour of 25 million of us. The ideal Panel size is 5400. Currently it is over 1000 peo- ple short, partly because of a growing world-wide reluctance to help data collectors.
For anyone wishing to sign up, BARB’s website doesn’t mince words: “Panel homes are select- ed via a multi-stage stratified and unclustered sample design.”
So there you have it. Must get in touch immediately.
McDevitt, an engaging, indus- try-shrewd executive with 22 years experience in sales and admin around the ITV regions, cuts through the techno-babble.
“We survey 52,000 people on a continuous basis and draw down the statistically appropriate families. They are the ones who get the metering kit fitted to the back of their sets. All they have to do is press a button when they switch on television, and let us know who else is in the room. The meter does the rest. We monitor every single broadcast that goes out in the UK.”
She adds: “We also carry out in depth daily interviews with
selected people; track the infor- mation overnight and present our customers – the broadcasters and advertisers – with a minute- by-minute breakdown on their breakfast tables.”
But it has been a rocky 12 months for McDevitt and BARB with the panellists shortage and a new computer system bedding down.
McDevitt, whose day gets off to a good start when John Humphrys moves in for combat on the Today programme, says she has become much more Draconian in her determination not to get blown off course by incoming flak.
Each morning before she switches on the computer in her non-flashy Bond Street office to look at the overnights, she takes a deep breath.
“I focus on what needs to be achieved before I leave in 12 hours time. It is crucial to keep a handle on the long term strate- gies and not be blown off course by minor storms. We need to be far less reactive.”
Today, as most days, there will be face-to-face meetings with one or more of BARB’s contract suppli- ers. She only has seven staff at head office. The systems, method-
ology, market research are all designed and run by a range of specialist global companies.
Together, they are grappling with the future. “Technology is changing behaviour. People will be able to pick up TV from a num- ber of pieces of equipment. Interactivity is growing. Viewers with a screen divided into four can leave broadcast television and go off elsewhere. Our customers need to know where they go.”
Yet, despite changing behav- iour, McDevitt is a staunch believ- er in The Big Television Event. “The World Cup was wider than ever. Like the Jubilee, it became water-cooler television: people gathering at the water-cooler to share viewing experiences.”
And the perception that we are watching less TV?
“Compared with last year, not true. The numbers are about the same.” But ominously she adds: “You can be sure we shall be por- ing over the figures for the first quar- ter of next year.” Waiting for the answers, of course, from that multi- stage stratified unclustered Panel.
In the meantime, for McDevitt, it is off to the gym for a serious session of circuit training.
Neil LaBute’s
six of the best
Industry personalities hand out their very own BAFTAs
Best Love Scene In A Film
The two actors most committed to a love scene have to be Oliver Reed and Alan Bates in Women In Love. I saw it again the other day and I was shocked to see how ferociously they went at it. It’s right on the edge of being laughable, but it’s really quite beautiful.
Best Actress
That would be Jeanne Moreau. She’s the actress I’m probably most moved by. I’ve always found her work very striking, very alluring and complex. And there were a lot of great performances that she gave over the years... Diary of A Chambermaid, The Lovers, La Notte, Jules et Jim obviously. The fact that she was great looking doesn’t really hurt either. She is the most womanly of women to me.
Best Character Actor Who Looks Like A Matinee Idol Aaron Eckhart. I get the most pleasure from watching him gain 40 pounds or get a bad haircut, because then I can walk next to him in a restaurant and hold my head up. I admire someone who looks like that who is so willing to throw it all away every time he starts a movie and be true to his char- acter rather than his own vanity.
Best Musician/Collaborator
I got Elvis Costello to do the music for my play The Shape of Things, which premiered in London. He is incredibly gifted and it was really amazing to watch him score a film with work that he had already done. We picked music that he had already recorded, but used it in an emotional way that seemed right for the scene. I’ve just been a fan for a long
time so the chance to work with him was a gift.
Best Restaurant
While I was here making Possession I became a bit of a Wagamama junkie. I would make my way up Sloane Street holding my sleeve like a junkie. I just had to go there as often as possible.
Best Overall Movie God
Probably the greatest practitioner of great lines was Billy Wilder. I just screened Ace In The Hole for a group of people in Los Angeles and I was reminded what an amazingly adept piece of work it is. The Apartment is easily my favourite comedy. Wilder was someone who made things look effortless. He didn’t shoot in a complicated way, knew how to connect with an audience and understood that the actors were that conduit.
Detroit-born Neil LaBute, 39, directed In The Company of Men, Your Friends & Neighbours and Nurse Betty. His latest film, Possession, his own adaptation of AS Byatt’s Booker Prize-winning novel co-starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, Jeremy Northam and Jennifer Ehle, opens here on October 25.
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