Barb stand for the (Broadcasters audience research board) they are in charge of collecting and reporting on the rating of certain television channels and the various programmes they show. It is important for tv channels to see what percent of the population is watching their programmes to ensure their channel and its programmes remain popular and therefore profitable.

Anyone can go on the BARB website and look at the viewing figure for any channel. It shows you the top 30 programmes for a particular month  that have been shown on the channels. Companies such as this allow television companies to view the rating for their programmes and ensure that they are collecting sufficient viewing figures and reaching their target audience.This can also be used in favour of advertising companies as they can see when the most amount of viewers are watching a particular programme and attempt to buy advertising time in the break in order to have the opportunity to sell products to a huge audience. For the company Apple may choose to advertise their 'ipod' during the programme 'Jersey shore' as they are aware that many people watching MTV have an interest in music and musical equipment and they will be aware that 'Jersey Shore' was the most watched programme on the channel from the 19th- 25th September with 196,000 viewers tuning in.