Landing page: IBDF needs to tell BARC if it wants to knock off entire session:Shashi Sinha

The controversy around landing pages in the broadcast industry is not a new one. The situation came to a head a few weeks back when Zee Media withdrew from BARC ratings citing the landing page as the prime reason, which give undue advantage to channels that are ready to shell out huge amounts for placement.

Speaking at the NBF national conclave on ‘Future of News’, held in Delhi yesterday (October 21, 2022), Shashi Sinha, CEO, IPG Mediabrands India, and Chairman, BARC India, sought to shed ore light on this contentious issue and some hitherto unknown details about it.

Speaking at a panel discussion on ‘BARC and Beyond’ Sinha admitted that there are issues – some real and some perceived – as far as the news genre is concerned. He maintained, “Most of the problems related to BARC are not technology or capability issues, but stakeholder issues.”

At this point, Arnab Goswami, Editor-in-Chief, Republic, while sharing the news industry’s angst over the landing page issue, stated, “There is a responsibility that BARC has, you can’t dodge the responsibility.” Goswami pointed out that there are TV channels who are ready to shell out Rs 20 crore, Rs 30 crore, Rs 40 crore to buy landing pages. “We will be the No. 1 channel if we have a lot of money, which is an absurd proposition. News is about serving the audience with news and not trying to buy landing pages,” he emphasised.

Goswami pointed out that BARC has the technology to differentiate between what is a landing page viewership and what is a normal viewership. “If these channels say that landing page is a marketing tool, then it can be defined as a marketing tool, but when that marketing tool upsets the viewership pattern in what is a very sensitive genre, when the numbers are easily affected, then there is a need to differentiate the viewership numbers.” Continuing further, Goswami also pointed out that BARC has the ability and technology to differentiate it and asked, “Why can’t BARC put out two viewerships – with and without landing pages? Would you want to see a situation where there are only people with lots of money who survive in the media business? Why don’t you take that decisive step?”

Replying to Goswami’s questions, Sinha shared the backdrop of the entire landing page issue and said, “BARC created a landing page algorithm around 2-3 years back. At that time I was not the BARC chairman, but I was involved in running the core technical committee, along with a broadcaster and an advertiser representives. The then CEO of BARC and the oversight committee and Praveen Tripathi and various people who designed the algorithm at that time wanted to cut out the entire landing page session. However, at that point in time, the broadcaster nominee on the core tech com, who was from a large GEC that was into sports broadcasting, said ‘are you trying to say when I get a big tournament like IPL and if you take out the landing page, then the whole match session will go out?’ The representative stressed that this was not acceptable. He added that ‘we are doing it as a sampling mechanism and sampling is there when someone is staying on. So, you find out what is less and you have to move out.”

“The advertiser member on the core tech com said ‘we as advertisers do shop displays and if you are doing merchandising and someone buys because of that, so be it’,” Sinha shared, adding, “The interesting thing was that BARC had recommended to knock off the entire session, however, it was shot down by the collective wisdom of the Board and the tech com at that point in time, which I was a part of.”

Sinha also informed the gathering that 10 days back the issue came up again at with the President of IBDF – an industry body that represents the broadcasters. He added, “I narrated the story and told him that it is your decision to tell us collectively whether you want the entire session to be knocked off or not, and then we will carry out with the stakeholders. In fact, the algorithm for knocking off the entire session makes our lives far easier than doing the business of what we are doing. IBDF has to get back on this with its decision. It’s not a BARC decision. As you know this is a split house. We also suggested if you feel uncomfortable doing it for all genres, do it only for news.”