Fight for measurement of TV viewership gets intense

Even as BARC readies rollout by end-April, TAM refuses to back down

The battle for the television viewership measurement business in the country has intensified, with Television Audience Measurement India, an equal joint venture of WPP’s Kantar and Nielsen, all ready to give the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) a fight. The latter, backed by Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), is readying a rollout by the third to fourth week of April.

IBF holds a 60 per cent stake in BARC, and ISA and AAAI 20 per cent stake each.

Kantar’s global chairman and chief executive, Eric Salama, told the Business Standard that TAM had no plans to wrap up. “We will have a host of clients for our rating services and all the existing clients for services that BARC can’t provide. We are happy to compete and cooperate,” Salama said.

Sources said this optimism stems from the fact that not all media agencies and advertisers are expected to give up TAM.

The head of a media agency group said, “Some media agency professionals have been associated with the BARC. They have to show solidarity and commitment to the BARC, now that it is being rolled out. But, I don’t think the agency people will stop subscribing to TAM. Clients are not comfortable with this, because TAM has been the currency for so many years and all our media calls have been made using TAM data. One has to see how effective BARC is before deciding on whether we can stop subscribing to it.”

The broad consensus is TAM’s subscription, due for renewal (for the next financial year), will be continued by media agencies, at least for three to six months, even as broadcasters seem to have decided not to continue subscribing to TAM data after March.

A fortnight ago, the AAAI had issued an advisory to its members. “We had told our members of BARC’s imminent rollout and asked them to be prepared for it," said M G Parameswaran, the president of AAAI. “We even proposed a methodology of how viewership could be forecast in the case of a ratings’ dark period.”

Salama said, “We have never shied from competition. Usually, it is good for markets and clients, and we relish using the spur of competition to improve our services. The sector will have to learn how to cope with two sets of ratings. But, it won’t be good for BARC or TAM. Both will have lower revenues in a highly capital-intensive business.”

An executive of a television network said, “We may see three-five weeks of ratings’ darkness from April to mid-May, at the most. This time will be used by agencies, advertisers and us to streamline our internal processes with the new ratings system promoted by BARC. We are hopeful new ratings will be out from May 1.”

The period of rating darkness, incidentally, coincides with the launch of the Indian Premier League, the annual Twenty-20 cricket extravaganza aired on Multi Screen Media. Also, a few top shows have been planned by channels such as STAR and Zee around that time. But people in the know say MSM, STAR and Zee see little impact on the advertising sales of their respective properties, owing to the availability of historical data.