Government puts its hand in TV ratings

Michael Hedges August 25, 2008

Television being the world-wide distraction of choice, governments look for opportunities to interfere with, say some, or improve, say others, the programs and the business. Audience measurement being not only the currency for trading air-time for ad spending but a means of picking winners and also-rans, broadcasters look for any competitive advantage. It’s logical, then, that governments would want ‘fair and balanced’ ratings. It’s logical, too, that broadcasters might be skeptical

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) issued final recommendations for the conduct and organization of television audience surveys after a lengthy deliberation.  A newly formed joint industry committee (JIC) of broadcasters and advertising people – the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) – is set to start work at the new year. The TRAI said television audience measurement transcends business interests alone and is essential to evaluate public media policies.

The TRAI wants BARC to function as a self-regulated TV ratings provider, provided the service is open and transparent. BARC should, said the TRAI recommendations, sub-contract the measurement work, disclosing all the particulars. And, too, the BARC board might include two nominees from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting who would assist in vetting the sub-contractors. The recommendations were published August 19th.

"BARC can be recognized as the institutional framework", suggested the TRAI. Once in operation BARC effectively changes television audience measurement in India and relegates the current measurement services to being suppliers to the JIC. BARC will determine, for example, sample sizes and distribution currently at the discretion of the two dominant suppliers.

Also recommended was transferring TV content regulation to TRAI, which controls only carriage. The number of television channels available in India has exploded to nearly 350 this decade and TV content is largely self-regulated, though recently the government has threatened errant channels with censure or closure.

BARC barked back, saying “government has absolutely and unequivocally no role to play in audience measurement, and that self- regulation and government intervention are a clear contradiction in terms.”

TAM Media Research (TAM) and Audience Measurement and Analytics (aMap) provide television audience measurement in India. TAM provides weekly numbers and aMap provides daily figures. TAM launched in 1998 and aMap followed in 2004. Competition between the two service providers forced TAM to offer faster reporting at a premium.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting asked the TRAI to look into TV audience measurement on growing concerns that significant Indian TV viewers are not measured. TAM currently uses a panel of about seven thousand households. The aMap panel is about six thousand households. Both services use electronic measurement devices in cities with populations over 100,000. The aMap meter is the Telecontrol product developed in Switzerland.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan.Dasmunsi said (April 2008) he’d been threatened by “a powerful lobby” if “irregularities” in the TV ratings system were exposed.  He has asked private TV channels to “rise about the ratings race” to promote social values. The Ministry (August 16) gave three prominent channels two weeks to justify broadcasting controversial programs, one being an “objectionable and indecent” news feature on the 62nd anniversary of the bikini.

TAM – a joint venture of A C Nielsen and Kantar Media Research - has been criticized for offering gifts and other incentives to sign people up for the meter panel, standard practice in much of the world.  Questions have also been raised about the confidentiality of meter panel household addresses.

“It is a first step in the right direction,” said aMap CEO Amit Varma to The Hindu (August 21). “The rating business should not be a monopoly of a single agency and an open bid process recommended by TRAI is welcome. However, the January deadline may be a little too tight.”