Features | The impact of MIB's TRP Committee and the reaction of the stakeholders

The motive of the Committee was to provide an opportunity to view the road forward, ensuring that appropriate measurement mechanisms were put in place. The 15 recommendations have discussed many issues like the growth in the sample size and in three years down the line to cover areas like Jammu and Kasmhir and the North Eastern states. The recommendations also point out that all the stakeholders like broadcasters and advertising agencies should pay a certain amout of their annual turnover to the body that will be analysing the TRP data.

The Committee pointed out that an industry-led initiative of broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies, called Broadcast Audience Research Council ( BARC), had been formed and duly registered in July 2010 as a Not for Profit Body under Section 25 of the Companies Act. The Committee feels that the self regulation of TRPs by the Industry is the best way to move forward.

We asked the stakeholders to gather their reactions on the Committee's recommendations.

Uday Shankar, CEO, STAR India:

I welcome the report submitted by Dr. Amit Mitra Committee on TRP system in India and I congratulate him and theCommittee for the excellent work that they have done.

First of all it reflects the sentiments of all the stakeholders and puts forth practical and implementable measures to address the problems facing the audience measurement in India.

As I have been saying all along that self-regulation by the stakeholders is the most effective way of handling a growing industry like broadcasting and audience measurement and its analysis is the part and parcel of the broadcasting industry.

The Committee's recommendation on increasing the sample size to 15,000 urban and rural households over a period of two years and then to 30,000 over the next three years can be implemented if the stakeholders join hand with an enabling stimulus package from the Government. I strongly support the Committee's sentiment that the "sample should be representative of urban, rural, small towns, J&K, North East and all platforms and technologies such as terrestrial TV, digital and analog cable, DTH, IPTV, etc."

I wholeheartedly welcome the Committee's recommendations that the TRP generation and methodology of calculation should be carried out in a credible, transparent and statistically robust manner.

The most important of the recommendations put forth by the Committee is regarding the frequency of TRP announcement. I have been the strong opponent of the TRP data being released on a regular minute by minute basis which creates unnecessary distortions in behavioral pattern by television channels. I hope the rating agencies would adhere to the Committee's recommendation and correct the anomaly in the interest of the broadcasting sector.

The Indian Broadcasting Foundation has been advocating the rating system should keep pace with the emerging new technologies/delivery platforms so that the system captures the viewers choice through different platforms and thus avoid distortion of the rating system.

As regards recommendations concerning changes within the board of BARC I will formally examine the views of the committee with my other colleagues and initiate necessary measures to implement them within the time frame of June 2011.

Finally, I sincerely thank Dr. Mitra and his colleagues and the Hon'ble Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Smt. Ambika Soni, for an excellent and forward looking recommendation on the audience measurement system.

TAM's Statement:

TAM Media Research has welcomed the FICCI Report "Review of Existing Television Ratings Systems in India", submitted to MIB today (Jan 10, 2011). TAM is jointly owned by Nielsen and Kantar Media Research - the two global independent audience research specialists who operate in 50+ countries worldwide.

TAM believes that the directions and way forward suggested by the FICCI Report will only take the Indian Media Industry to a newer trajectory of Growth.

It is very encouraging to see that the approach and ideologies getting reflected in the FICCI Report are the same as what TAM has always believed in ' that is helping the industry grow by acting as the central, neutral and technologically advanced Media Research Partner. TAM Media Research is a service that is OF the industry, FOR the industry and BY the industry.

TAM has already started work towards achieving the peoplemeter sample size proposed by the Committee.

Infact, the first phase of this exercise is the one that TAM had already announced in July 2010 ' covering Rural and the remaining Less Than Class 1 urban India. (Less Than Class 1 means all towns in urban India with a population of Less than 100,000 individuals). To this end, TAM is consulting with all the stakeholders of the TV Ratings process.

Like in the last 12 years, TAM looks forward to working even more closely with the Government and the various user segments of the industry in taking Indian TV Broadcast to newer heights.

Ashish Bhasin, Chairman India & CEO South East Asia, Aegis Media India Pvt. Ltd:

There are some positives and some shortfalls to the recommendations. I think it is a very good move to increase the people meters. The other recommendation where the committee has clearly stated that cross-holding should be disallowed is a much appreciated point so as to avoid conflict of interest. However I would like to know what will be the role of several advertising bodies in the regualtory body. Besides the composition of the body allows only 2 members from advertising agencies, which also includes Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP), I think this should be changed a bit to increase the number of members representing the advertising agencies.

I like the fact that the Committee has pointed out to study regions like Jammu and Kashmir and the North Eastern regions. The markets are opening up in these regions and there is not enough data that is available, if this recommendation is executed gradually I think it will help in a big way to understand the TV consumption pattern of these regions.

Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer, Aditya Birla Group- Financial Services:

We spend a lot of money on advertising and half of the times it works and at times it does not pay much return on our investment. So it very important to measure the response. Currently we do not have a scientific and validated measure. So now if the MIB is doing it then am sure it would be very credible and there would be added scale to it. Earlier we lacked scale. | By Prabha Hegde [prabha(at)adgully.com]