New TV rating system by BARC likely in April

A new rating system for television by the Broadcasters Audience Research Council (BARC) might be launched in April. The new system would replace the existing ratings provider, TAM (a joint venture between Nielsen and Kantar). Partho Dasgupta, chief executive officer (CEO) of BARC says, "I would not like to put a date to it but am confident the system will be launched in the coming weeks." Confirming this, Ashish Bhasin, chairman and CEO, South Asia Dentsu Aegis Network, says, "The new ratings system should be rolled out some time in April." The team at BARC is organising road shows with broadcasters and media agencies to explain the new ratings system. According to sources, some broadcasters have already started trying out the new rating system as part of BARC's pilot. BARC has broadcasters, advertisers and agencies as its equity stakeholders and thus, would get preference over TAM, which has been mired in controversies for some time. It has earned flak for having too few people-metres to measure television viewing in the country (only about 10,000).

BARC aims to start operations with at least 20,000 people metres to provide deeper measurement of television viewing habits in the country.