Quick decision on BARB costs

By

I have implicit trust in Paul McCann’s abilities to report faithfully the comments of those to whom he speaks. After all, in his article “When the BARB price isn’t right” (MW February 17), he accurately quotes from our conversation regarding the future measurements of specialist and/or minority cable channels.

It is all the more odd, then, that the same piece contains an incredible comment from my friend Doug Read of Mediacom. I quote: “One way of dealing with the future is to put it off for another two years so that we have a better idea of what it looks like.” Did Doug really say that? May I plagiarise it for my next (otherwise boring) lecture on media research?

Hopefully it’s a joke. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go off and hibernate for a couple of years? Then we could come out of our comatose state to see what decisions had been made by the other poor sods who had had to do something while we slept.

We cannot sit on our backsides and let the next couple of years drift gently by. Research-ers must stand up and be counted about their decisions for the future.

Alan Copage

Director

Carat Research

Drury Lane

London WC2

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