Industry-led body should guide TV ratings: Trai

NEW DELHI: Ruling out government intervention in the form of regulation, Trai on Thursday said that an industry-led body should be responsible for the operational issues of television rating agencies. The regulator has issued draft recommendations on policy guidelines and operational issues for television rating points (TRPs).
Trai has recommended that the industry initiative - Broadcast Audience Research Council - should be recognized as the institutional framework.Its technical committee can guide and supervise the various processes of rating and while the council should not undertake audience measurement directly, it can resort to an open, transparent bidding process for the various stages involved in the rating process.
Concerned over the alleged monopoly of the TAM Media Research agency over the Rs 8,000 crore television advertising, the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry had sought Trai���s intervention on the system and framework of such agencies. The ministry was keen that the framework should ensure transparency, independence of rating agencies and increased coverage reflecting the plurality of regions and viewership.
At present, two private agencies - TAM Media Research and Audience Measurement and Analytics (aMap) - evaluate TV ratings on a commercial basis. But their operations are limited to cities with a population above one lakh. Within big cities too, their sample size is limited to a total of about 7000 (TAM) and 6000 (aMAP) metered homes.
All states except J&K, Bihar, Jharkhand and the northeast states are covered by TAM, while aMap samples cover all states except J&K and northeast but include Jammu and Guwahati. While TAM provides weekly data, aMAP gives daily updates.
The regulator has suggested that the council���s board of directors can include two nominees of the I&B ministry besides members from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and Indian Statistical Institute (ISI), Kolkata.
It has asked the I&B ministry to draft the key eligibility norms for the selection of rating agencies and their performance obligation norms.
The addresses and location of homes where people-meters are installed should be kept confidential and the council should have a complaints redressal mechanism, the regulator said.