The tool has been developed to help the BBC understand its audience’s engagement and journey with content across all platforms and devices – rather than viewing audiences in the existing media currency silos.

BBC Compass works with existing industry measurement currencies to enhance understanding, giving the BBC an audience-centric measure of success, including channel loyalty.

At the IAB MeasureUp conference Ipsos audience measurement global commercial director, Jim Ford, said: "Ipsos is pioneering the passive measurement of broadcast media, that is TV and radio, and on device consumption of content, that is on smartphones, PCs and laptops, on a single source panel.

"We do not use multiple meters, PeopleMeters, pagers or watches, rather we use our panellists’ own familiar devices to passively measure their activity. This means that we have good participation, good levels of engagement and robust and consistent data.

"There was a lot of scepticism from the marketplace on whether we would be able to do this, but we now have two years of data in place and have proved that with the right technology and approach, single source measurement panels have a real role in audience measurement globally."

BBC Compass has 2,900 participants that are nationally representative of UK population using multiple passive techniques including app-based audio meters, online meter and mobile diaries that collect exposure, interaction, motion, location and other data.