Govt probes TAM's measurement system

Following NDTV’s lawsuit against Nielsen and Kantar Media, the co-owners of TAM Media Research, the government is investigating about the measurement system followed by TAM, and has asked the industry stakeholders to come up with an alternative.

“The ministry and Prasar Bharati are independently collecting information about the measurement system followed by TAM. We are also questioning TAM about the methodology followed by them,” said a senior official at the ministry of information and broadcasting (I&B), on condition of anonymity.

“We are going to take action on the basis of the data we compile,” the official added. After the alleged discrepancies in television viewership data, the I&B ministry and broadcasters had questioned the methodology and transparency used by the agency.

TAM has refused to comment on the issue so far. Being the only agency in the broadcasting industry that collects data from TV households and tabulates them to determine television viewership patterns, its findings are influential among broadcasters, media agencies and advertisers.

Broadcasters feel TAM’s sample size is too small and the numbers are not correct indicators of viewership in a fragmented television market like India. At present, TAM has about 8,150 people meters installed across 161 cities. The agency plans to touch 10,000 homes in 225 cities.

Aloke Mallik, managing director, ESPN Star Sports, said: “We would like television audience measurement agencies to have a larger sample size with adequate representation in rural areas. The existing framework needs to take into account the explosion in TV viewing that has happened in these areas over the last few years.”

Most broadcasters and advertisers stress on the need for improving the ratings system. In March, Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) had announced to bring back the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), an audience measurement system promoted by them, to ensure transparency.

IBF will have 60 per cent stake in the new entity, while Indian Society of Advertisers and Advertising Agencies Association of India will equally hold the balance 40 per cent. The board would have 10 members

Even though broadcasters feel the urgency for an alternative rating system, nothing has succeeded in the past. Last year, the overnight- rating system, aMap, was shut down due to lack of subscribers. Media planners say there was simply no consensus on the data provided by them. Similarly, BARC was also closed three years back for the same reason. Although the industry says it will take over a year for BARC to be relaunched, the government is not too happy with the progress.

Meanwhile Nielsen has discontinued providing viewership data to the media, as they did not want to face any heat from the broadcasters as most of them prefer to tweak the data according to target audience and market.