New body to measure TV audience ratings

NEW DELHI: Industry representatives, including broadcasters and advertisers, have announced setting up of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), which will measure TV audience ratings and, to that extent, break the monopoly of TAM.
This will be the first time that media industry representatives will be part of the audience rating body and its equity will be held by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) with a 60%, 20% and 20% stake respectively.
BARC was a key recommendation of the Amit Mitra committee on TV audience measurement set up by the I&B ministry. A 10-member BARC board will soon be announced.
At present, TV audience is measured by private firm TAM. There has been some dissatisfaction in the government on the small sample size (of only about 6,000 set-top boxes used by TAM to extrapolate data for the entire country) and the omission of the terrestrial TV network from TAM data.
“Advertisers are always looking for transparent and robust research and in-depth insights into the rapidly changing television viewership landscape,” ISA chairman Bharat V Patel said. AAAI president Nagesh Alai added: “A scientific and rational research methodology is the central thought behind BARC.”
IBF board director Paritosh Joshi said the new body will bring about a transformation not just for ratings and audience measurement but for Indian television in general. “The idea of a joint industry initiative for TV audience measurement has been with us for the last six years,” he said.