The Broadcasters’ Audience Research Board, or BARB, tells us the who what, when, where, and how of watching British TV and computer screens. Jointly owned by ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky, the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, and the BBC, it has been going in its current form for many years, shifting as required to keep track of changes caused by deregulation and the proliferation of consumer technologies.

Music video program Rage made its debut on ABC TV 30 years ago this week, on Friday April 17 1987. At the time of its debut Rage was one of five similar music video programs on Australian TV including Video Hits and a local version of MTV. As the others slowly died, morphed or were replaced, Rage has continued with an unwavering commitment to giving Australian audiences access to the weird and wonderful world of music videos.

In 2016, several UK universities regrettably adopted the use of trigger warnings to signal ‘potentially disturbing’ material on course syllabi.

Viewing practices in the age of second screens Watching television has always been a social activity. Recently, audience practices have been changing with the introduction of new forms of media technologies such as smartphones and tablet computers. Audience members have the option to log onto the Internet anytime and anyplace – even while watching television.

What do the following programmes have in common?

When I moved from the UK to Ireland in 2015/16 my transition in terms of the availability of television was relatively easy. Given that many of the same channels, subscription packages and streaming services span both the UK and Ireland, it felt more that my television viewing was enhanced by the re-introduction of Irish terrestrial broadcast channels such as RTE 1 &

It was a bold scheduling move on the part of ITV, the UK’s main commercial television channel. Shifting the nightly news programme to make way for Britain’s latest attempt at a US-style late night talk show was always going to be risky.

There’s a general rule of thumb about the BBC Archives recognised by fans of old television – that we can confidently expect programmes from after late 1977 to survive. Thanks to the good work of Sue Malden in establishing BBC Archive guidelines, it was only at this time – rather late in the day in terms of recording technology – that a policy of systematically preserving BBC TV programming came into being.

A while ago, Martin Barker invited scholars to discuss the potential for the re-incorporation of Marxist ideas into audience studies. For a short time, a group of us discussed via email how Marxism might be re-introduced to the study of audiences. But very quickly, the group fell silent, largely, I assume as a result of our workloads that kept us from fully engaging in the discussion.

I’m back living in the US, courtesy of five months researching with the Latin American studies folks at Tulane U in New Orleans. After the banal surveillance and corporate vocabulary of English higher education, it’s an incredible tonic to be in a genuinely intellectual and largely progressive environment.