YouTube wants TV budgets but not TV scrutiny

British media buyers say YouTube wants access to TV budgets without accepting TV’s independent measurement and scrutiny, after the streaming service pulled out of a Barb/Kantar Media cross-platform measurement service just months after its inception.

While YouTube’s viewership in the UK is still measured through Ipsos/Iris, Nielsen, AudienceProject and ISBA’s Origin, Barb represents the industry standard for TV measurement in the UK.

YouTube sent a cease and desist letter last week to Barb and Kantar Media, demanding that they stop accessing data used to compare YouTube channel viewership with linear TV channels and streamers like Netflix, Sky and ITVX. Google said the measurement service violated its terms of service.

The absence of Barb’s industry-standard panel measurement is leading media buyers to question YouTube’s true added value moving forward.

“When a client’s asking us to allocate spend between linear TV and YouTube, we can give them verified Barb data for TV, but for YouTube, we’re quoting Google’s numbers that we can’t independently verify,” said Nick Tong, managing partner at Mediaplus UK. This “undermines confidence when you’re recommending where to invest millions of pounds.”

“The issue isn’t whether YouTube should be on the plan; it’s whether we can properly evaluate if it’s doing its job efficiently,” Tong added.

The Barb-Kantar service allowed media buyers to compare YouTube viewership data on TV sets from 200 YouTube channels with data from both linear TV channels and streaming platforms. Peppa Pig and MrBeast were among the selected channels.

“UK broadcasters accept independent scrutiny because it makes the market work. It creates trust, enables fair comparison and lets advertisers make informed decisions about where to allocate millions of pounds. YouTube can’t pitch ‘YouTube is TV’ and then refuse TV-standard measurement if or when the data doesn’t flatter them,” Tong said.

“YouTube needs to commit to being measured like TV if it wants TV budgets.”

A spokesperson for Kantar Media told The Current: “We can confirm that the measurement service is paused per Barb’s recent announcement. We will not be commenting on confidential client discussions further at this time.”

Barb could not provide comment before the article’s publishing date.

Like Tong, other top media buyers pushed back against Google’s move.

Jonathan Chambers, director of investment at Generation Media, told Campaign: “By restricting the data needed to assess comparable performance, claims of equivalence become less credible. … It complicates pricing conversations and weakens [YouTube’s] ability to demonstrate effectiveness and value to internal stakeholders, at a time when scrutiny on marketing ROI is only increasing.”

Esme Wood, head of programmatic at the7stars, told Campaign that the agency was “disappointed” in the decision, highlighting the importance of transparent and comparable cross-media data and adding that “historically, some in the industry have viewed these numbers with a degree of scepticism, which is precisely why independent, industry standard measurement from Barb has been so eagerly anticipated.”

Measuring the black box

The number of tools that U.K. media buyers need to measure video and TV performance is high, and makes the need for reliable, independent cross-platform measurement even more glaring.

For Tong, the current stack includes: Barb for linear TV, platform forecasting tools for YouTube, AudienceProject to measure incremental YouTube reach when planned with TV, IPA Touchpoints for media consumption and channel planning behavior, plus the agency’s internal planning tools.

“It’s an industry-wide challenge that no one has fully solved yet,” Tong said.

So what would trustworthy cross-platform measurement look like?

Independent panel-based measurement that covers YouTube the same way Barb covers linear TV and streaming. “Not platform-reported data, not modeled estimates, but actual verified viewing from a representative panel using consistent methodology,” Tong said. “That’s what Barb and Kantar were building before Google killed it.”

Deterministic cross-platform deduplication that tells us genuine incremental reach. Origin does some of this for Google and Meta post-campaign, but it’s still platform-controlled data and it doesn’t integrate TV. “We need to know: If we run on ITV and YouTube … how much genuine incremental reach did YouTube add versus linear TV?” Tong said.

Video completion and attention data. “Not just impressions served but verified viewability and completion rates across platforms using the same standards,” Tong said. “Origin measures this for digital video, but we need it integrated with TV measurement.”

Ultimately, Google invited the comparisons to TV upon itself by going to market with the narrative that YouTube is TV. YouTube is TV.

“If Google genuinely believes YouTube delivers comparable value to linear TV, they should welcome independent verification. The fact they’ve gone legal to stop it suggests they don’t,” Tong said.

“It feels as though YouTube wants the money but not the accountability.”