BARC India roles out New Viwership Terminology

Eight months after it launched its TV Ratings service, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has re-named its popular viewership measurement metric Rat'000 as Impressions'000. Going forward (viz. with effect from on Thursday, 14 January when data for Week1/2016 is released) the current Rat'000s will be referred to as Impressions '000s.

Users of BARC India data may note that the new terminology does not imply any change in the way television viewership is measured. Nor will the introduction of Impressions'000 have any impact on past data BARC India has released so far. BARC India would also like to inform its subscribers that the metric Rat% will continue to be used as it is, and will see no change.

The decision to usher under this new terminology in the new year has been taken to avoid confusion in the marketplace  and as BARC India gears up for its digital measurement initiative.

"We are preparing for the future. When we get into digital measurement, viewership will be measured in Impressions and in order to maintain uniformity and avoid confusion we decided to rename Ratings '000s to Impressions '000s," said Partho Dasgupta, CEO, BARC India.