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Tag: BARC India

  • “I’m optimistic that BARC will be able to measure all screens very soon:” Shashi Sinha

    “I’m optimistic that BARC will be able to measure all screens very soon:” Shashi Sinha

    MUMBAI: Stressing on the importance of measurement, IPG Mediabrands CEO Shashi Sinha is of the opinion that with the way things are shaping up along with technological advancements, India’s new television ratings measurement body Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India will be able to measure all screens very soon and not just television.

     

    Giving a keynote at a media review organised by The Ad Club of India, Sinha said, “If you cannot measure, you cannot control. In India, measurement is not always about science and technology, it’s also about giving stakeholders a perspective. The television industry is migrating from TAM to BARC and hence witnessing a lot of glitches. But going forward with how things are shaping up and the technologies that BARC is using I am optimistic that BARC will be able to measure all the screens very soon. It is very important to have common matrices and single source when it comes to measurement.”

     

    Sinha also expressed his anguish about the fact that besides having so many powerful associations, India does not have an organised measurement mechanism.

     

    The media review was organised to discuss the challenging issue: Continuous Partial Attention (CPA) of Audiences and was attended by key media, advertising and marketing veterans.

     

    The theme of the discussion was ‘Is Anyone Listening,’ which began with Asian Federation of Advertising Associations (AFAA) executive committee chairman Pradeep Guha announcing the road map of Ad Asia Summit, which will be hosted by Taipei in November. Every year, the India delegation is led by a stalwart from either media, advertising or marketing agency. Guha announced, “2015 India delegate in Ad Asia will be led by Colors CEO Raj Nayak and the emphasis will be around digital – the theme of 2015 Ad Asia.”

     

    Media veteran Meenakshi Menon threw light on the lack of communication between the advertiser, agency and client. “The model we are following is totally broken. The advertising model cannot move like an ostrich in a lightening fast world. India has always shown the world how to do work differently.”

     

    Highlighting the factors that play a pivotal role in bringing about agency reviews for accounts, Menon’s said, “Change of CMO – 63 per cent, business performance – 78 per cent, creative dissatisfaction – 59 per cent, general relationship – 56 per cent and compensation – seven per cent. Discount can be an icing on the cake but can never be the reason behind the selection of an agency. Additionally, there is a strong distrust amongst clients and agencies, which needs to be addressed and worked. Moreover, the guys in advertising need to believe in themselves.”

     

    Contradicting Menon’s viewpoint, Google India agency business director Punitha Arumugham said, “Agencies are the most effective listeners in the business and they are doing some good and progressive work. They are the only stakeholders in the fraternity, who listen to everybody.”

     

    Arumugam abbreviated ‘Listen’ from the topic’s ‘Is Anyone Listening,’ wherein L stood for Leverage Insights, I for Investigative Features, S for Seek moments, T for Think Moonshots, E for Employ Curious People and N was for Never stop being amazing.”   

     

    In his end note, moderator of the panel discussion, Madison World chairman and managing director Sam Balsara left the audience to ponder over a few pertinent questions. “With new ratings and measurement bodies coming in, should the fundamentals and principles remain same or should they also change with the change of mechanisms?” he asked. Balsara also threw light on the inconsistencies in subscription fees while referring to the migration from BARC and TAM but accepted the fact that measurement is an essential tool as, “matrices are the building bricks of any plan,” he concluded.

  • BARC India unveils individual ratings; Zee TV claims third spot

    BARC India unveils individual ratings; Zee TV claims third spot

    MUMBAI: Week 21 of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) ratings, for the first time, highlighted data at an individual level.

     

    The latest week witnessed Zee TV emerging as a clear winner by securing its long lost ‘third’ position with 232395 (000’s sum). Life OK moved back to the fourth position with 224480 (000’s sum).

     

    Star Plus further strengthened its top position with 406152 (000’s sum) followed by Colors at number two with 361133 (000’s sum).

     

    On the other hand, Sab stayed put at number five with 187228 (000’s sum).

     

    Coming to the three shows, Star Plus’s Saath Nibhaana Saathiya continued to rule the charts with 7430 (000’s). Zee TV’s Kumkum Bhagya perched at number two with 4971 (000’s) and Colors’ Sasural Simar Ka stood at number three with 4930 (000’s).

     

    In the news broadcasting space, Aaj Tak continued to hold on to its numero uno position with 26410 (000’s sum) followed by ABP News with 22898 (000’s sum), whereas India TV secured the third position with 22487 (000’s sum).

     

    Times Now continued its dominance in the English News broadcasting space with 497 (000’s sum) followed by India Today Television (erstwhile Headlines Today) with 175 (000’s sum). CNN IBN at number three registered 155 (000’s sum).

     

    With absolute no change in the pecking order of sports category, Sony Max and Sony Six, official broadcasters of the Indian Premier League (IPL) were placed on the first and second slot with 256640 (000’s sum) and 51286 (000’s sum) respectively. Ten Sports at number three noted 41773 (000’s sum).

  • BARC India partners Twitter to provide easy access to topline data

    BARC India partners Twitter to provide easy access to topline data

    MUMBAI: Continuing the evolution television ratings measurement body Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has launched its latest innovation – #BARCTweet. In partnership with Twitter, this will provide TV viewers and industry insiders with weekly ratings data on-the-go and delivered to their Twitter timeline.

     

    The new offering #BARCTweet in association with Frrole – a social data intelligence setup manning the backend software, will now make reaching out to consumers possible bringing to life one of BARC India’s key goals.

     

    To acquire the topline television audience ratings data, one simply needs to tweet with the hashtag #BARCTweet followed by the data request e.g. #BARCTweet Top 5 Telugu Programs. The industry body’s Twitter handle @BARCIndia will then reply to users with the requested information.

     

    While BARC India’s subscribers have access to all the data on a weekly basis, this unique service is available free of cost to non-subscribers, which also underlines the transparency that is at the very core of the BARC India philosophy.

    As a joint industry body, BARC India has always believed and followed the brand philosophy of communicating and engaging with stakeholders across all broadcasters, media agencies and advertisers in India.

     

    This latest step towards an open TV rating service is another in a series of advances like BARC India Media Workstation (BMW) and SpotTrek (Next day of telecast – spot monitoring and certification service).

     

    BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta says, “In keeping with our focus on technology, BARC India is geared for new possibilities and opportunities to connect with all who are keen on knowing more about the television audience measurement service in India and are therefore proud to present a World First with the launch of hashtag #BARCTweet with the Twitter India team.”

     

    Twitter market director, South & Southeast Asia Rishi Jaitly adds, “BARC India’s ambition to innovate and create a unique value proposition for users is something we admire. Twitter believes in the power of information and this empowers all users equally, which is very exciting from a Twitter point of view.” 

  • BARC India to report individual ratings data from 4 June

    BARC India to report individual ratings data from 4 June

    MUMBAI: The board of directors of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India have taken a step ahead and have decided to roll out Individual Ratings Data starting with week 21 (Saturday, 23 May to Friday, 29 May). This will now be released every Thursday beginning 4 June.

     

     As is known, on 29 April, 2015 BARC India, began rolling out its television ratings data. The data rolled out was from week 16 and comprised a panel of about 12,000 households from cities and towns with population more than 100,000 all India. BARC India started measuring states like Jammu Kashmir, North East and Goa, which were never measured earlier.

     

    BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta said, “Response from broadcasters and advertising agencies has been very good. While all broadcasters were using the household data to their benefit – now with individual data releasing, media planners, buyers and advertisers can make the most of it too. This is the next launch in our series of phased launches for the world’s largest and most modern audience measurement system.”

  • 9X Jalwa registered 25% growth post revamp

    9X Jalwa registered 25% growth post revamp

    MUMBAI: Backed by the revamp process that started post August 2014 with the ‘forever young’ philosophy, 9X Jalwa is moving forward towards becoming a strong force in the television music industry.

     

    As per Television Audience Measurement (TAM) analysis, the channel has seen a 25 per cent growth post revamp in terms of weekly GRPs.

     

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com about the revamp, 9X Media chief programming officer Amar Tidke said, “Forever young is a philosophy curated out of youth and music lovers who appreciated the revamp that we underwent. That is just the encouragement that we were thriving for. As part of the philosophical change, we have offered our viewers a theme in forever young and so far with the reaction that we have garnered, I must say the progress has been commendable.”

     

    The recently launched rating body Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC) placed 9X Jalwa at the second position with average weekly GRPs of 36 right after Mastiii. Jalwa’s sister channel 9XM competing in the same genre, garnered average ratings of 34. When asked if this competition affects the processing, Tidke opined, “Well it is true we are operating in the same genre and we are often asked if one eats into the other’s pie, but if you see, we are two different channels catering to the needs of two different sets of audience and the subtle difference separates each other.”

     

    “Innovations like Hits Forever, Love Forever, Melody Forever, Jalwa Superstar, Vintage, GenX and ClubX garnished the forever young philosophy. Going forward, we will continue the process of creating more such unique bands to keep our audience forever young, which is our main goal,” Tidke added.

     

    ClubX is the recent addition in the catalogue, which is a two-hour music band that airs every Friday and Saturday between 6 – 8 pm. The playlist for this band has been handpicked from some of the best party songs and will include foot – tapping numbers.

     

    Speaking on the marketing and promotional strategy of the channel, Tidke said, “9X Jalwa follows a 360 degree marketing strategy with interactive attention on social media platform. Also whenever there is a trending topic, which can be converted into a promotional activity, we aggressively push for it like we did with DDLJ, when everyone wanted the movie to not go out of Maratha Mandir. Besides that, we also tie up with different events like Kala Ghoda and Promax BDA. We manage to reach the target audience of brands efficiently because of our exclusive content.”

     

    Cadburys, HUL, Godrej and Reckitt are some of the brands that are closely associated with 9X Jalwa on a regular basis.

  • Industry reactions on BARC India’s first TV ratings data roll out

    Industry reactions on BARC India’s first TV ratings data roll out

    MUMBAI: The seeds for a new television measurement body were sown in 2008 and after a good seven years, on 29 April 2015, the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, a joint industry body, rolled out its first set of data for week 16.

     

    Post the release of the data, BARC India said in a statement, “It’s a momentous day in the history of Indian television that will change how content consumption will be monitored and measured. The wait for the industry is over as BARC India rolls out its first set of data.”

     

    The body will be releasing data for 1lakh+ C&S markets, which corresponds to a sample size of 10,760 households. BARC India will actually monitor 12,000 sample households for this, using a stratified random sampling technique that is proven statistically. This will go up to 20,000 reporting homes, with addition of the less than 1 lakh urban markets and rural areas to represent “What India Watches” in line with the Government of India, January 2014 notification.

     

    Speaking on the industry body’s new journey, BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta said, “I am thrilled to share the first set of Data and Highlights. Solving this puzzle has been an exciting experience and Team BARC India is proud to be creating history as the world’s largest and future ready television audience measurement service. Thanks to IBF, AAAI, ISA and all our partners for coming together and making this happen.”

     

    Just a few minutes after the first data was rolled out, BARC India chairman and ZEEL MD and CEO Punit Goenka tweeted, “The launch of BARC India’s world class television audience measurement system makes it a historic day for the entire industry! With the implementation of @BARCIndia , the ecosystem has certainly turned absolutely transparent! @BARCIndia will certainly be the best solution to report what the nation is actually watching! I would like to thank @parthodasgupta, @paritoshZero ,#ShashiSinha,#SmitaJha & the entire @BARCIndia team for their commitment and hardwork!”

     

    According to Goenka, BARC India is committed to build a world class television audience measurement system. “With an aim to bring in utmost transparency within the ecosystem, BARC India will certainly be the best solution to report what the nation is actually watching,” added Goenka.

     

    Dentsu Aegis Network chairman and CEO South Asia Ashish Bhasin said, “Well I think overall BARC is a great step for us as a television measurement system as for the first time we will have transparent, robust measurement. While a lot of excitement is being generated over the data but the only word of caution I would give is that this is one week data of household level. We should give it a few months time for the data to stabilize before the real trends start emerging.  A trend is formed by several data points’ and this is just one. We will have to wait for a while for more trends to emerge.”

     

     

    Times Network MD and CEO MK Anand is happy with the results as it shows the network’s strength. “We are happy that the new measurement system is finally in place. We look forward to reaping the benefits of this evolved system to the maximum. BARC is technologically advanced and is larger than the erstwhile base of meters by almost two-and-a-half times. An extended viewer base will certainly help bring in more consumers into the analysed set and improve our services to them and thus generate more value. With BARC, we have retained the No.1 spot across channels, and we continue to lead the broadcast space in the respective genres we are present in with a clear margin. Times Network’s ‘Now or Nothing’ philosophy, helps us sustain our leadership across genres with differentiated and hard hitting content and stay on top of the audience pyramid as always.”

     

    Times Now editorial director and editor in chief Arnab Goswami added, “I am delighted with the BARC numbers. It shows us dominating half the market with the other half shared between the smaller English news channels. At 9 pm, we have 2/3rds of the audience with us, with the other one third shared between the smaller channels. Proves our theory that the viewer always chooses the number one news team. In English news now, there is no number 2.”

     

    On the other hand, India Today group CEO Ashish Bagga believes that the ratings by BARC India only adds credibility to the leadership status of Aaj Tak and the trust it enjoys with the news viewers. “The channel’s superiority is backed with years of unwavering focus towards excellence in journalism. I would like to congratulate the entire team at Aaj Tak for crossing another milestone and likewise to BARC for putting together a robust measurement system,” he said.

     

    Network 18 group CEO AP Parigi said, “The first week’s data shows CNBC TV18 as the #1 English business channel, CNBC Awaaz as the #1 Hindi business channel and CNN IBN as the #2 English news channel and IBN 7 as the #6 Hindi News Channel. Colors is #1 Hindi General Entertainment Channel in the prime time slot (7 pm to 11:30 pm). We should be patient and not jump to conclusions; a deeper understanding of how viewership numbers should be interpreted suggests that while one celebrates BARC’s roll out it would be prudent to wait till the system evolves.”

     

    Times Network senior VP and head- English entertainment cluster Vivek Srivastava said, “The first week BARC numbers are in sync with our expectations. Both our brands Movies Now and Romedy Now have been consistent leaders in their respective genres on TAM and we continue to lead the pack on BARC as well.”

     

    Contradicting the general reaction, Helios Media managing director Divya Radhakrishnan said, “These are initial knee jerk reactions. One will have to wait for individual level data as one cannot do media planning with household level data. Secondly, it does not cover all the markets. And thirdly in terms of upsets, it’s more or less the same pecking order except for one or two and there are real reasons why they are not featuring as well.”

     

    Knee jerk reactions aside, over the coming few weeks it will nonetheless be interesting to analyze, evaluate and interpret data from a larger television audience base as recorded by BARC.

  • BARC India to rollout data by end-April; to out ratings on Wednesday

    BARC India to rollout data by end-April; to out ratings on Wednesday

    MUMBAI: Speculation and anxiety over the new television rating system will come to rest by the end of April. Yes! That’s when the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India will start rolling out its data.

     

    The industry, will not only have to get used to a new measurement body, but also do away with waiting for the ratings every Thursday. BARC India, a joint industry body, will be outing data every Wednesday. 

     

    The measurement body, during a conference held on 6 April attended by broadcasters, media agencies and advertisers, presented the actual data that it would give starting April end. “We showed them the actual data as has been collated by us so far,” said BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta.

     

    As was reported earlier, most of the leading broadcasters and media agencies had not renewed their subscription with TAM, after their subscription ended on 31 March, 2015. Not only this, many media agencies had also, through an email, informed their clients about the current situation.

     

    The email stated, “The industry bodies have agreed to cease using TAM ratings from 4 April. Rating blackout period will kick in from 5 April, until such time that BARC is available. Data for blackout period will not be available in the future too.”

     

    While TAM had said that it will continue generating ratings and give it out to broadcasters whose subscription hasn’t expired, a veteran media expert had told Indiantelevision.com, “TAM can continue coming out with its data, but it will no longer be a viewership currency. It will just work as information.”

     

    With BARC rolling out data starting April end, the industry will have to deal with a ratings dark period only for a couple of weeks.

  • Dr. Sumit Chowdhury joins BARC India as technical advisor

    Dr. Sumit Chowdhury joins BARC India as technical advisor

    MUMBAI:  Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has appointed former Reliance Jio Infocomm president Dr. Sumit Chowdhury as technical advisor. This is a move to align and streamline technology processes since almost 76 per cent of BARC India spends are on technology.

     

    As BARC India moves closer to launch, Chowdhury’s mandate is to measure and automate all critical processes and to create a mission-critical infrastructure that scales to the requirements of the industry. He will also contribute to the creation of other information products from the vast amount of data collected by BARC India.

     

    BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta said, “As we are gearing up for launch, Sumit’s excellent background and experience in telecom, media, entertainment and other industries will ensure all systems scale and are in sync and automated for the big data factory that we would be running.”

     

    “It is great to be a part of a start-up, which is slated to be the biggest television audience measurement system across the world and I look forward to a whole new world of excitement as I join team BARC India in solving the puzzle,” Chowdhury added.

     

    Chowdhury is the founder of Gaia Smart Cities, an M2M/IOT company focused on telecom and ICT solutions for smart cities. At Reliance Jio, he was initially CIO and then helped establish their enterprise business. Prior to Jio, he was IBM vice president, Reliance Communications CIO and a partner with KPMG.

  • BARC India organizes media workstation training sessions

    BARC India organizes media workstation training sessions

    MUMBAI: BARC India organised training sessions to its stakeholders across four cities in India. The BARC India Media Workstation (BMW) gave users a new software, which will usher in a new era of audience interpretation.

     

    According to BARC India, the industry responded with a houseful of registrations within three days of its announcement and members of the industry are coming in to test drive the new software.

     

    BMW Training sessions are being conducted every Monday in Mumbai and every Wednesday in Delhi. With four batches of one hour each and over 120 attendees on the first day.

     

    Team BARC India took the participants through a step-by-step introduction across the AudView, AdView, PlanView and TeleView sections of the BMW. Separate tables with lap-tops were available for a hands-on experience.

     

    The BARC India Road shows have been promoted online. Those who attended the BMW training session were awarded certificates.

     

    To register Click here

  • BARC India to conduct roadshows in February

    BARC India to conduct roadshows in February

    MUMBAI: The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) is all set for 2015, as it will hold roadshows in February on the GUI (Graphical User Interface) in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru.

    It was in 2013 when the Council held its first round of roadshows that aimed at sharing the latest updates from BARC with all constituents across the entire broadcast value chain, and, equally important, to receive feedback and suggestions, so that the new television measurement system is completely robust, transparent and representative.

    Welcoming the New Year, the council thanked its stakeholders, vendors, partners and associates as well as highlighted its achievements. With more than 275 channels having ordered for embedders, all major networks in each region and across genres are now on-board.

    As it continues to reach out to the stakeholders for feedback, the playout monitoring facilities are in action and meta-tagging of content across watermarked channels is in full throttle in Mumbai and Bengaluru.

    It has also tested the end-to-end integration of the system, which is working perfectly fine. The technology handshakes are in place and ratings are being generated from the BARC system now.

    In continuation to unravel the puzzle of TV audience measurement system in India, BARC India shared a few learnings and insights on the importance of Relative Errors and Confidence Levels in audience measurement for new beginnings.

    BARC India and the importance of Relative Error

    Over the past few months, BARC India has highlighted its commitment to data robustness and has spoken about lower Relative Errors at high Confidence Levels. It has repeatedly highlighted that Relative Errors are an important factor to be considered whenever it evaluated the ratings data, or read any research report, for that matter.

    Relative Error and its impact on research data

    It is not possible to sample every individual (except perhaps, a Census); hence, sample surveys are undertaken. Statistics offer scientific methods to estimate phenomena across entire population by studying samples. Any sample survey suffers inherently from various errors. Owing to these, statistics never talk about an average (or mean) without talking simultaneously about a measure of dispersion, usually the standard deviation.

    A researcher has to balance between demands of greater accuracy and constraints of finite resources. Statisticians therefore work with defined ‘Confidence Intervals’ and ‘Sampling Errors’. One of these sampling errors is the ‘Relative Error’, or the deviation (in percentage) of the observed value from the actual (expected) value.

    Confidence Level (or Confidence Interval)

    Confidence Level is generally defined as a percentage or a decimal figure less than one. So, if a researcher says that the Confidence Interval is 90 per cent, what he means is that 90 per cent of the samples of the same size taken from the same population will produce results within a defined range.

    Relative Error

    A TV ratings measurement system estimates that the programme has 1 TRP with a standard deviation of 0.25. This means that the actual rating is expected to lie between 1-0.25 and 1+0.25 or 0.75 and 1.25. The relative error is simply 0.25/1.0 or 25 per cent.

     A simplistic explanation that may antagonise a purist, but can be explained simply in the diagram below:

    In other words, it is important for a research to ensure least possible Relative Error at the highest possible Confidence Level; else it risks generating data with such wide variance that it becomes meaningless. Just imagine saying that a programme has 1 TRP at the above Relative Errors.

    Factors affecting Relative Error

    The most important factor that affects Relative Error is sample size. Relative Error increases in geometric magnitude as sample size decreases, while it becomes independent of sample size beyond a certain threshold.

    Sampling is also relatively simpler when estimating a homogenous population and more complex for heterogeneous population. It is hence extremely important to have a significantly large sample size, especially when calculating estimates for large heterogeneous universe.

    On how BARC India intends to handle issues related to sample size to ensure robustness of data, the council shares a hypothetical scenario – A planner wishes to evaluate programme viewership for the following TG for a premium brand – males, NCCS AB, 40+ in Delhi

    Total Sample Size: 130

    Approx. sample size for a programme with a rating of 1 per cent viewers: 13

     A sample size of 13 is way too low to do any meaningful evaluation. Hence, BARC India would not encourage such evaluations.

     To circumvent this issue, BARC India intends to aggregate the data through one of the following means:

    •        Aggregate viewership data across two or more weeks

    •        Add more cities to the sample, aggregating geographically

    •        Instead of considering a particular individual programme or a limited time, evaluate a day part, thus aggregating by time bands

    Each of the above methods would increase the sample size and would allow the planner to make his decision based on robust relevant data. The BARC India Technical Committee is evaluating options of either hardcoding the aggregations in the pre-publishing stage itself, or allowing the planner to decide the aggregation based on his/her requirements. This decision would be taken only after seeing the data for all panel homes and assessing the pros and cons of each method.