Prasar Bharati miffed with big players in IBF, row over new

Public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has accused "certain big broadcasters" of monopolising the industry body - Indian Broadcasting Federation (IBF)- and keeping Doordarshan out of decision making, which, it claimed, was derailing the formation of a new mechanism for measuring TV viewership.
IBF officials, however, rejected the allegation that Doordarshan was being kept out of its decision making process for the creation of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), a alternative mechanism to TAM ratings to gauge viewership.
Sources told PTI that upset at what the public broadcaster feels is its exclusion from the process of creation of BARC, Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar has raised the matter with I&B minister Manish Tewari and secretary Uday Kumar Varma.

"I have written several letters and mails pointing out to the complete monopolisation of the IBF by certain big broadcasters and the assiduous efforts made by them to keep Prasar Bharati and Doordarshan out of their decision making.
"The net result is that IBF went in for a series of confrontational posturing like contesting TRAI's 12-minute ad cap (which they relented) and spending so much on the baseline survey (their Establishment survey) for BARC, half of the data of which are readily available in the public domain," Sircar was quoted as saying in a letter to Tewari and Varma.
"This has derailed the setting up of BARC and they have excluded Prasar Bharati-Doordarshan out of it, despite strong message from the ministry," Sircar added in his letter.