BARB Hires Laycock for New Audiences Director Post

UK TV audience measurement body BARB has hired former InSites Consulting exec Matt Laycock for a newly created position, Audiences Director. He joins on 26th September.

BARB is responsible for delivering the UK's television audience ratings, both for advertisers and to support decisions about the making and distribution of TV programmes. It has also established Dovetail Fusion, which integrates its panel data each day with big data collected from broadcasters' VOD services. Laycock (pictured) joins from InSites Consulting, where as Research Director he oversaw a wide range of MR projects for global consumer businesses. Prior to this he spent nine years at The Walt Disney Company, latterly as Research Director - UK & Ireland, and earlier in his career he was Channel 4's Research Manager - Sponsorship and Online Ad Sales.

In his new role, Laycock will be responsible for delivering BARB's four strategic priorities: enhancing data accessibility for users; extending its reporting of TV and TV-like viewing across linear, BVOD, SVOD and relevant content on video-sharing platforms; further developing its Advanced Campaign Hub for agencies and advertisers and overseeing its input to the development of the unified TV advertising metric CFlight; and overseeing the delivery of an effective communications programme.

He will work closely with Caroline Baxter, recently appointed Research Operations Director, to ensure that users' needs are understood and met by BARB's research contractors. Commenting on the appointment, CEO Justin Sampson said: 'Synthesising the needs of the industry with research agency capabilities is at the heart of what the BARB team does. Matt's instinctive skills and extensive experience of using our data complement Caroline's expertise in delivering research solutions. I'm delighted he's agreed to join BARB'.

Web site: www.barb.co.uk .