NBF Demands Immediate Release of Audience Data of News Channels

The News Broadcasters Federation, the country’s largest trade body of TV news channels, demands the immediate release of the audience measurement ratings of news genre by BARC and also requests the agency to take corrective measures for future data. Any further withholding of data beyond the initially envisaged 12-weeks is counterproductive. 

News channels employ hundreds of thousands of media professionals and their livelihood depends on the revenues generated by news channel and is directly related to the audience measurement data (TRPs).  Therefore, NBF calls upon the stakeholders of BARC to initiate steps to resume release of ratings of news channels with immediate effect.  We believe the data is also critical for both ISA AND AAAI, the major stakeholders of the advertising fraternity.

NBF represents the largest group of national and regional news broadcaster and is committed to working all industry stakeholders including Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), as well as the Advertising  Agencies Association of India (AAAI) resolve this issue.

NBF also calls upon BARC not to come under pressure of vested interests or allow such pressure to hold back the release of ratings. Many news broadcaster’s are free to air and are dependant on advertising income , and locking the release of ratings any further will sever impact them.

The regional which are represented in a large part by NBF do not operate on large budgets and are hit harder by the decision to suspend ratings. Therefore looking at the large picture, the interests of all news broadcasters in India the current economic climate and the livelihoods of news ratings should be brought back as promised since the 12-week period is already over.