The increase is the largest since Barb’s launch in 1981 and includes new metering technology for Barb’s reporting panel.

Barb said the increase was part of its multi-year contracts, which run until the end of 2029, with principal research partners Kantar, Ipsos and RSMB.

The panel expansion also comes after Barb’s decision to expand measurement to other forms of television viewing, such as broadcaster video-on-demand (BVOD) services on multiple screens, non-linear programmes on TV sets, advertising/subscription video-on-demand (AVOD/SVOD) services, video-sharing platforms and dynamically-served advertising.

Barb is working to integrate additional sources through its new Barb Panel Plus initiative, which will help Barb to incorporate return path data and first-party data from a wide range of media owners, including pure-play video on demand services and video sharing platforms.

Caroline Baxter, chief operating officer at Barb, said: “I’m passionate about high quality panels and expanding the panel is crucial because it will ensure continued high quality and true representativeness of the population.

“This increase demonstrates Barb’s continued commitment to the UK TV and advertising industry to deliver independent quality insight that comes from panel-based measurement.”