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  • 2012: Fighting for change in the media and ad biz

    2012: Fighting for change in the media and ad biz

    2012 proved to be a year when the broadcasters, media and ad agencies were fighting for change. The year began with the hunt for a TV ratings system that would take care of the changing environment and the launch of the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) was announced that would be acceptable to all the stakeholders of the industry.

    Another head turner event came in the form of NDTV filing a case against TAM and its holding companies in the New York Supreme Court. The move opened conversations regarding the reliability of data provided by TAM and saw the industry bodies converge and work in tandem with the ratings agency to improve the state of affairs.

    It was a dull year for media spends as a poor GDP growth rate dampened the market sentiment which ultimately led to the advertisers tightening the purse strings. As a result, the advertising expenditure forecast was downgraded at the half year mark. The festive season also failed to lift the spirits in the ad market.

    Even as the industry was battling ad slowdown, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) came up with its ill-timed ad regulation that had the broadcasters, particularly news channels, up in arms. Trai’s attempt to regulate ad duration on television though could not fructify as Tdsat stayed its implementation till further orders.

    Taking advantage of the wave of creative entrepreneurship that has hit India in the past few years, global media communications conglomerates came shopping to the country. Publicis led the pack with four acquisitions in a year while Dentsu snapped up the prized Taproot.

    Ad slowdown

     -GroupM downgraded India‘s ad expenditure growth to 6.6 per cent in 2012. It revised India‘s advertising expenditure in July 2012 to Rs 355.92 billion, from its January estimate of Rs 373.97 billion.
     -As per the GroupM report for TV, the Telecom category cut down spends substantially in the first half of the year. Financial services were adversely affected by poor market conditions here as elsewhere in the world. Even consumer durables spent less in the first half of 2012 than the prior year period.
    – During the festive season in October, the ad spends were not as anticipated. The slowdown since the beginning of the year did not see any remarkable recovery.

    NDTV v/s TAM

    -The legal dispute between NDTV and TAM Media Research, India‘s sole TV audience measurement agency, speeded up the movement towards the setting up of Barc. Incidentally, this was the first time that an Indian broadcaster went to the court against the ratings agency.
    -On 26 July 2012, New Delhi Television (NDTV) moved the court against TAM, its parent companies Nielsen and Kantar Media Research and senior officials of the companies. The case was filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
    – NDTV claimed that TAM is employing an inadequate sampling size for the Indian market, and also of using inadequate security measures to protect its data.The Indian broadcaster also alleged that the lack of security led to an atmosphere of widespread corruption, with different networks bribing sample households to watch them.
    -The NDTV lawsuit in New York against TAM Media spurred the pubcaster to join hands. Prasar Bharati blamed the current television ratings system for not being able to capture Doordarshan‘s audiences in its correct light, despite the pubcaster enjoying the largest reach in the country.
    -Though the allegations were not conclusive, it also led the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) to arrange a meeting with TAM officials on 16 August to understand directly from the ratings agency what the facts (regarding the NDTV lawsuit) were.
    -As a result of the meeting, TAM outlined six key action steps it would take to correct the shortcomings in its current system. These included: appointment of a security officer and agency; expansion in number of meters in the existing 6 top metros; a review by the industry of research processes that determine what TAM reports in its weekly reports; what meter homes are left out of reporting for being data outliners; getting the homes independently audited; faster panel rotation; and an internal audit team to be put in place as soon as possible.
    – WPP and group firms filed for dismissal of lawsuit against them.
    -The final word is yet to come from the court on the validity of NDTV‘s charges.

    BARC

    -Even as the legal discourse continued, the stakeholders were busy shaping up BARC.
    -In March 2012, the IBF, ISA and AAAI announced the launch of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), with IBF holding 60 per cent, and AAAI and ISA equally holding the balance 40 per cent.
    -Government asked IBF, the AAAI and the ISA to ensure adequate representation to Prasar Bharati.
    -Barc formed a three-member technical committee comprising IPG Mediabrands India CEO Shashi Sinha, India TV strategist Paritosh Joshi and Unilever head of CMI South Smita Bhosale.

    Deals dot the landscape

    -The biggest acquisition made in the year was the buyout of creative hothouse Taproot India by Japanese communications major Dentsu.
    -Aegis Media, which was bought by Dentsu, acquired performance marketing and search agency Communicate2.
    -The multinational agencies shopped more for Indian digital firms. WPP’s JWT Singapore acquired 51 per cent stake in Hungama Digital Services.
    -Publicis Groupe’s Leo Burnett snapped up Indian digital agency Indigo Consulting in April to enhance the ad agency’s digital capacity in India. Continuing with the inorganic growth route, Publicis bought out digital agency Resultrix. And it ended 2012 by gobbling up iStrat and Marketgate.
    -The publishing arm of Bertelsmann AG Gruner + Jahr acquired digital agency Network play in March. Networkplay, in turn, acquired mobile ad network company Seventynine in November.

    A Few Key Movements

    -Vikram Sakhuja, CEO of GroupM for India and South Asia, was appointed as global CEO of Maxus in August. It was the first time that the CEO of Maxus was to be based out of India and it is also the first instance where an Indian has been appointed the global CEO of a media agency.
    -Shashi Sinha appointed IPG Mediabrands India CEO as Lynn de Souza quit as CEO of Lintas Media Group to pursue social entrepreneurship.
    -CVL Srinivas quit Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) as CEO and joined GroupM to succeed Vikram Sakhuja as its South Asia CEO.
    -Punitha Arumugam quit Madison Media to join Google India as Director – Agency Business.

    Ad regulation

    -The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) came out with a consultation paper on ad regulation that capped ad duration at 12 minutes per hour for free-to-air (FTA) channels and six minutes per hour for pay channels.
    – Broadcasters lashed out at Trai for the ‘untimely’ ad regulation amid fear that regulation will have an adverse impact on business models particularly news and sports.
    -Notwithstanding opposition from broadcasters, Trai notified ad regulation at 12 minutes per clock hour, asking broadcasters to maintain a minimum time gap of at least 15 minutes between two consecutive ad breaks and 30 minutes in case of movie channels. Sports channels could air ads only during breaks (eg during half-time or after an over).
    -Aggrieved News Broadcasters Association (NBA) challenged the Trai regulation in Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (Tdsat), which stayed the implementation of ad regulation for five weeks.
    -The sector regulator told Tdsat that it was willing to discuss the ad regulation issue with broadcasters and would look into their grievance.
    -Tdsat directed Trai not to implement the ad regulation till further orders.
    -Trai softened its stance by proposing to delete the clause that required the gap between ads.

  • BARC to set the tone for single TV measurement system

    BARC to set the tone for single TV measurement system

    Developing a new television audience rating system is a long, arduous and costly process. It has required as a prerequisite that the three major stakeholders – IBF, AAAI and ISA come together under one umbrella (BARC) and agree on a process acceptable to all three parties to ensure this major initiative is accepted by all stakeholders. The industry expects to be well along in implementing this new measurement system by the end of 2013.

    The goal of BARC is to bring about transparency in the measurement system, greater accuracy while maintaining cost efficiencies and more checks and balances by separating responsibilities in the measurement process as well as countering fraud through rigorous ground monitoring. The industry recognises that no sampling technique can be 100 per cent accurate but seeks to reduce the sampling error and overcome to the extent possible the laws of small samples.

    The first step in the process is to create a transparent establishment study from which the universe can be projected that will be owned by BARC and available to all stakeholders. To this end, an RFI has been issued and based on the responses, an RFP will follow. Once a firm is selected, approximate 350,000 to 450,000 households on a nationwide basis will participate in an extensive survey that will take 6 – 8 months to complete.

    The establishment survey will form the base for the required number of measurement homes which are likely to exceed 25,000 nationwide. Once the number is finalised, new RFPs will be issued to select a vendor for the measurement system, and vendors for data collection and analysis and reporting. Breaking apart these tasks amongst different vendors is expected to bring greater accountability and transparency and build the most robust audience measurement system in the world. Ongoing ground monitoring will ensure that the system is not compromised over time.

    Given the expense of setting up the system, the time required and the fact that all stakeholders buy into ‘BARC’, the industry expects the BARC measurement system will become the single measurement system in India. This is typical of worldwide audience measurement where generally a given market has only one accepted measurement currency.

  • Television Audience Measurement: What next?

    Television Audience Measurement: What next?

    Yesterday, BARC took a decisive step forward. Punit Goenka in his role as Chairman, BARC announced the issuance of a Request for Information or RFI from entities worldwide who might be interested in participating in the forthcoming Request for Proposal stage.

    While the television rating system in India has shown great durability and adaptiveness, the pace of growth and change in the television landscape has consistently outstripped it. BARC is premised on finding and adopting best-in-class tools, technologies and processes that will not just close the gap, but create a constantly evolving and, thus, future ready audience measurement infrastructure.

    Here are the challenges that the new system will be expected to meet and overcome.

    1. Comprehensiveness: Television reaches very nearly two-thirds of all households in India. As economic development continues apace and more people have discretionary income, entertainment and information start assuming increasing prominence in their scheme of things. A cable-connected television is, and will remain, the least expensive single-point source of meeting this need, and new consumers waste little time in acquiring it.

    The household is now exposed to content but also to advertising that becomes a potent driver of new demand for a range of previously unknown products and services. Over the last decade, almost 10 million new households have entered the television footprint every year and the number doesn’t appear to be slowing down yet. A comprehensive measurement system must be able to recognise these burgeoning television households and keep them in the sights of broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies.

    2. Accuracy: There has been talk over the years of making broadcasters more accountable for audience deliveries. A number of deals are done on the basis of cost-per-rating-point (CPRP) but broadcasters have, rightly, complained that fair valuation of their inventory would have to be based on cost-per-thousand (CPT) or, as the print media call it, the mille rate. The current system falls some ways short of being able to facilitate the change from CPRP to CPT. Marketeers and broadcasters are looking forward to a system where actual audience deliveries in a defined target audience can be accurately quantified so that accountability for audiences can be fixed and reciprocally paid for.

    3. Adaptiveness: We still talk of single television homes as being the dominant model in India. Apparently, we are oblivious of the emergence of second and third screens that are being used by the younger demographic for consuming what was previously available exclusively on the television in the family room. The emergence of the smartphone and more recently of new devices like tablets (or even more recently, the rather inelegantly named ‘phablets’) has placed new content consumption devices in the hands of millions of young consumers. Content is now available to be consumed not just at a location but while on the move. Just like cellular telephony transformed communication from locational to personal, these screens and a constantly improving wireless broadband infrastructure are transforming television. The imminent arrival of 4G and crashing tablet prices will place highly mobile content consumption devices in millions of hands. The audience measurement system must be able to capture such mobile content consumption and stay adaptive with every future transformation of the television environment.

    4. Auditability: Being owned and managed by BARC, a joint industry body (or JIB in the pro parlance), stakeholders will have audit rights over the system that can ask searching questions about every aspect of the process, thus ensuring its integrity and ethical standards. All the key stakeholders are represented within BARC and this will ensure that the system remains always true, fair and transparent.

    These are not challenges unique to India but are faced universally by every television audience measurement system. Responses to the RFI will unearth a great body of valuable knowledge that the BARC can use to start building a gold standard system in India.

    It is good to finally say this: BARC has BITE.

  • BARC starts process for new TV viewership measurement architecture

    MUMBAI: The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) on Thursday called for information on state-of-the art television audience measurement from players across the globe, in a first step towards creating India‘s own architecture for computing television viewership ratings.

    The BARC has issued a global Request for Information (RFI) to seek understanding of the state-of-the art in the area of television audience measurement research in particular and audience measurement research in more general terms.

    In a statement, BARC says the RFI seeks ideas, templates, experiences, that will help BARC to blueprint the new television audience measurement system. It has sought responses to a list of questions which respondents may consider addressing as a part of their response to the RFI. The responses have to be submitted to BARC by 5 February.

    Punit Goenka, chairman BARC and MD & CEO, ZEE, said, “BARC is committed to building a Television Audience Measurement System that becomes ipso facto the Gold Standard in its class worldwide. Given that BARC addresses a population of over 1 billion, of which over 0.6 Billion have access to television in some form, I am confident that BARC will settle for nothing less than being the best.”

    BARC said respondents would also have to make a presentation, in addition to providing their credentials, information on TV measurement markets currently in their portfolio, their organisation structure, their focus towards India and finally their experience with TV audience measurement research.

    Shashi Sinha, Chairman, Technical Committee of BARC and CEO-Lodestar UM & CEO-IPG Mediabrands India said, “It is clear that legacy architecture of the (audience measurement) system, that has evolved incrementally, is now ready for seminal change. However, what is not clear is the contours of the new system, which BARC aims to define.”

    At various times, more than one vendor has attempted to provide audience measurement but from 2002, TAM Media Research, India — a joint venture of Nielsen and Kantar, has been the de facto provider of the measurement currency, being widely used by all stakeholder constituencies for all commercial and marketing decision-making.

    The BARC Technical Committee members comprising Shashi Sinha (representing Advertising Agencies Association of India), Paritosh Joshi, Principal, Provocateur Advisory (representing Indian Broadcasting Foundation) and Smita Bhosale, Head, CMI-Brand Building-South Asia, Hindustan Unilever Ltd (representing Indian Society of Advertisers) would evaluate the responses received.
    Respondents will receive the Request for Proposal (RFP) after BARC concludes its study of the responses received.

    Television audience measurement in India has been around for nearly three decades. Beginning with a simple diary based system in the early 1980s covering Doordarshan, then the state-owned monopoly broadcaster, it evolved parallel to the evolution of the Indian television market. By the mid-1990s, it was already covering satellite television and in the early part of this century, India was one of the earliest television markets to have a pure Peoplemeter based system.

    The challenges for an audience measurement system in an era of digital delivery of television channels brings in its wake a massive expansion in choice of content coupled with accelerating adoption of new technologies that are shifting consumption away from the fixed time chart (FTC); and shifting it to personal digital appliances are altogether different from the era when television meant living rooms, common choices and shared family experience. 

    BARC said it understands that a good system rests as much on a sound understanding of the footprint of the medium: the Establishment Study; as it does on continuous tracking of viewing behaviour: the Television Meter Panel.

    BARC is also aware of a number of technologies at varying stages of development that promise non-intrusive or minimally intrusive viewership measurement. BARC is also aware of developments in the area of integrated media consumption metrics, e.g. IPA‘s Touchpoints 4 exercise scheduled for next year.

    “All these are of interest to the architecture of the future system in India. BARC expects respondents to incorporate their own experiences in these areas as items of emphasis in the response to this RFI,” said BARC.

    The following are some of the areas BARC expects respondents to address:

    1. In-house knowledge and experience in the Television and more broadly, Media Audience Measurement space

    2. Global best practices in a number of areas including

    a. Vendor owned and managed vs. Joint Industry Body (JIB) or Joint Industry Committee (JIC) owned and managed – Advantages and Disadvantages 

    b. System architecture- Establishment, Metering, other services 

    c. One vendor or many vendors

    d. If multiple vendors, how scopes of work are clearly delineated

    e. If multiple vendors, how accountability is clearly defined

    3. Sampling design: How viewership volume, viewing intensity, audience economic attractiveness and other factors are accommodated 

    4. Measuring viewing across multiple screens

    5. Measuring viewing across individual, family and community settings

    6. Familiarity with Ascription, Data Fusion and Data Synthesis in multimedia measurement

    a. Need for fusing consumption data from multiple media

    b. How fused data are being introduced into commercial application

    7. Typical relative error levels in measurement systems operating in different geographies.

    a. Levels considered generally acceptable for a robust Peoplemeter system 

    b. Sampling designs that will ensure a systematically lower relative error

    8. Audit mechanisms typically put in place to ensure reportability of data

    9. Keeping Panels representative of a fast changing Universe while allowing for continuity of data reads without trend breaks.

  • 2012: Industry unites to avert deadlocks : Arvind Sharma, Chairman of Leo Burnett India Sub-Continent

    2012: Industry unites to avert deadlocks : Arvind Sharma, Chairman of Leo Burnett India Sub-Continent

    As the ancient Chinese proverb goes – May you live in interesting times! 2012 was certainly an interesting year. Worsening economic conditions caused India‘s GDP growth rate to fall dramatically and its credit rating to be downgraded (much has been written about its causes and remedies). The telecom industry survived the impact of an unprecedented cancellation of 122 licenses. Clients approached life with what is euphemistically called ‘cautious optimism‘. In the middle of all this action, there were a number of good campaigns and a number of unorthodox marketing initiatives – Goafest is round the corner and we‘ll celebrate these soon. These included an unlikely one by Arvind Kejriwal. I was amused that his party‘s name came out of a slogan I had written for the 2004 Congress election campaign, ‘Aam Aadmi ko kya Mila?‘

    Each one of these topics is worthy of a piece in itself. However, in this piece I am writing about a new perspective. A perspective derived from a very unique situation that my industry colleagues put me in. I was requested to perform three industry level roles – each one of them probably a whole job in itself. The roles were that of the President of Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI), Chairman of Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) and a member of Readership Studies Council of India (RSCI).

    For the last several years, the broad view that industry bodies have been taking was that they represent special interest groups and they must confront associations and institutions which represent other groups. This philosophy has merits – it is fair and legitimate that all sections of the industry aggressively push their viewpoints and interests. However, demerits of this approach should be equally obvious. If every association is locked into an inflexible position of self interest, you only have deadlocks and ‘cliffs‘. 2012 was a year where my colleagues across associations, took a U-turn on this mindset. We were able to resolve a number of deadlocks that had dogged the industry for years.

    Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), promoters of erstwhile National Readership Survey (NRS), and Media Research Users Council (MRUC), owners of Indian Readership Survey (IRS), not only came together but actually agreed on all the improvements that were required in readership studies. They agreed on major methodological issues. They even agreed on choice of a new research agency to conduct the new IRS.

    On the TV measurement front, Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and AAAI actually signed an agreement to create the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC). And surprise surprise! Everyone agreed on the choice of the technical committee chairman! Hopefully, BARC will now move forward and deliver us a new TV audience measurement system in around a year.

    A few years ago, an attempt to introduce digitisation under the name of Conditional Access System (CAS) in metros failed miserably. One of the reported reasons for the failure was that under CAS, measurement data is bound to be unstable for some weeks which resulted in unexpected winners. The winners tried to make the most of their weekly bonanzas and the losers retaliated by withdrawing support for CAS. AAAI, IBF and ISA, looking at the big picture, agreed to suspend release of audience measurement data for a few weeks. Of course, the then Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Mrs. Ambika Soni‘s role in making digitisation possible has been recognised across the country. However, the role that the three associations collectively played to ensure successful implementation of this law has been critical.

    On regulation of advertising content, similar positive and collaborative dialogues are under way between ASCI and various other institutions.

    Various institutions and industry associations do represent interests of various segments of the society and business. However, in 2012, the wisdom that segments cannot improve their lots unless the whole improves, is the wisdom that prevailed. I fervently hope that this will continue to be the industry‘s mindset as we move forward to address many issues that the society at large and the industry face moving ahead.

    With some definite signals and many forecasts optimistic of a better year ahead, I eagerly look forward to 2013. I believe that it will not just be an interesting year but a year of growth and progress for all of us. Wishing everyone a happy 2013!

     

  • Shashi Sinha is BARC TechComm chairman

    MUMBAI: The first step towards making the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) operational has been taken with the formation of the television audience measurement body‘s technical committee.

    IPG Mediabrands India CEO Shashi Sinha has been appointed as the chairman of the technical committee of BARC.

    BARC, constituted in July 2010 under the Companies Act, aims to set up a transparent and credible television audience measurement system in India. BARC would be the umbrella body and television audience measurement service providers like TAM Media Research, a joint venture of Nielsen and Kantar, will function under it for the purpose of providing ratings.

    India TV strategist Paritosh Joshi and Hindustan Unilever head of CMI South Smita Bhosale are members of the committee.

    Sinha said, “Setting up of the technical committee is very important for the pushing of BARC but the board (of BARC) is supreme. The Committee will make all the recommendations in terms of how sampling and other technical things should be done. So it will be a recommendation body but the final decision will be taken by BARC board.”

    BARC is headed by Zeel CEO Punit Goenka as chairman. The board includes six broadcasters, two advertisers – HUL executive director home and personal care Hemant Bakshi and ex-P&G India chairman and managing director Bharat Patel – and two agency executives – GroupM South Asia CEO Vikram Sakhuja and RK Swamy BBDO chairman and MD Sunder K Swamy.

    BARC is 60 per cent owned by the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) and 20 per cent each by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

  • Govt pushes for adequate representation in BARC

    MUMBAI: Don‘t mistake the alternative television ratings system to be under the total control of the private broadcasters, advertising agencies and the advertisers. The government is pushing for adequate representation inside BARC (Broadcast Audience Research Council), the new entity that will lay out the television audience measurement system in India.

    BARC has been formed with the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) having a 60 per cent stake and the remaining 40 per cent being shared equally between the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

    Prasar Bharati, the public broadcaster, was to benefit from the formation of BARC as the TV ratings coverage would have spread across wider geographies. Now the government also wants DAVP (Directorate of Advertising and Publicity) , which channelises all advertising spends made by the government, to have some voice.

    In a meeting on 4 September called by the government and attended by the IBF, the AAAI and the ISA members, the government has said that it wanted adequate representation. “The Information and Broadcasting ministry asked us what steps were being taken to include the Prasar Bharati and the DAVP (in BARC).They want adequate representation from Prasar Bharati and DAVP to have adequate representation in BARC to look after the Government‘s interest. We have heard the suggestions and will consider them,” AAAI president and Leo Burnett chairman and CEO of India subcontinent Arvind Sharma told Indiantelevision.com.

    The meeting was chaired by I&B ministry secretary Uday Kumar Verma.

    The three bodies were also asked to nominate an advisory committee on BARC by the end of next week .

    “The push has been to move BARC forward. The secretary has asked us (AAAI, IBF and ISA) to nominate a high powered committee whose role will be to guide and advise (on BARC) by the end of next week. We as BARC need to identify and concur on the names,” said Sharma.

    During the meeting, the secretary also referred to the Amit Mitra Committee report which suggested that statisticians, sociologists and demographers should form part of the technical committee.

  • Govt directs IBF, AAAI & ISA to submit BARC roll-out plan

    NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The government on Tuesday directed broadcasters, advertisers and advertising agencies to submit a detailed plan for making Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) functional soon.

    The directive was given by the Secretary in the Information & Broadcasting Ministry Uday Kumar Verma during an hour-long meeting with Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) in New Delhi, convened to give a strong push for BARC.

    “The ministry instructed the constituent members of BARC to submit a time-table outlining the next steps in the roll out of BARC. But the deadline for the submission of this time table has not been given,” said Arvind Sharma, Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) president and Leo Burnett chairman and CEO of India subcontinent.

    I&B Ministry officials said Verma stressed at the meeting that the matter of BARC was gaining importance in view of the New Delhi Television Ltd’s (NDTV) lawsuit in New York against television ratings by TAM Media Research. NDTV has alleged that TAM and its owners Nielsen and WPP subsidiaries Kantar and Cavendish have knowingly failed to act against corruption in TAM’s television ratings system.

    According to the scheme of things, BARC would be an apex entity for measuring television viewership ratings in India. It will appoint and monitor service providers like TAM providing on-ground services for measuring television ratings.

    The secretary also expressed dissatisfaction that the responsibility of setting up BARC was given to IBF but there has been no progress after it was registered in July 2010.

    The ministry officials said IBF president and Star India CEO Uday Shankar gave an assurance to the I&B secretary that “the three bodies have come together now and will speedily set up BARC”.

    When AAAI and ISA were asked about the status of BARC, their representatives said they had approved the articles of association of BARC and it was for IBF to take it forward now. IBF’s Shankar then informed the meeting that the document is yet to be approved by the IBF board and once it is done, IBF will get back to AAAI and ISA at the earliest, according to the officials.

    Apart from AAAI’s Sharma and IBF’s Shankar, among those who attended the meeting were IBF Treasurer and Zee Entertainment Enterprises managing director and CEO Punit Goenka, Lodestar UM CEO Shashi Sinha, Draftfcb+Ulka executive director Nagesh Alai, RK Swamy BBDO chairman and MD Sundar K Swamy and Nestle India VP communications Virat Mehta.

    AAAI’s Sharma told Indiantelevision.com that “The meeting was held with specific focus on the progress of BARC. The AAAI and the ISA informed the Secretary that the two bodies have approved and given the Articles of Association to the IBF and are waiting for a revert on the same.”

    Earlier this year, I&B Minister Ambika Soni had told parliament that BARC would be functional soon and its first ratings would be released by July 2013.

  • I&B calls AAAI, ISA for meet on 4 Sept over TV ratings issue

    NEW DELHI: The pressure on TAM Media Research, India‘s sole television ratings provider, is just not easing. The Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has decided to act in response to the NDTV lawsuit against the corrupt television ratings and the demand by News Broadcasters Association (NBA) for its intervention.

    After reportedly asking television ratings provider TAM Media Research and its 50 per cent owner Nielsen to submit a report on the status of the plans to make the ratings system robust, the ministry has convened a meeting with the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) on Tuesday, 4 September.

    The meeting with AAAI and ISA is being held amid raging controversy over the credibility of television viewership ratings, after NDTV (New Delhi Television Ltd) filed a lawsuit in New York against TAM, its owners Nielsen and WPP and their officials.

    The meeting is also happening in the backdrop of a delay in operationalising the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), which is to be jointly set up by Indian Broadcasting Foundation, AAAI and ISA.

    Sources close to the I&B ministry have confirmed to Indiantelevision.com that the meeting has been scheduled on Tuesday.

    According to a media report, the government has given to TAM 10 days and Nielsen two weeks to reply. The report said the government has also sought information from TAM and Nielsen on generation of viewership data from towns with less than 1 lakh of population and from north-east states and Jammu & Kashmir.

    “This has gone too far,” said the CEO of a media agency, suggesting that the meeting is a fallout of the war of words between WPP and NDTV.

    Leo Burnett chairman of India Subcontinent Arvind Sharma declined to talk on the meeting but referring to the media report said, “I can‘t blame the government for being concerned over what all is happening in media. The long term solution is that via the three players – AAAI, ISA and IBF – creation of BARC should be speeded up. One has to understand that there has to be a reliable, transparent medium. What government wants is similar to what we want and there isn‘t any contradiction.”

    Sharma said TAM has been giving AAAI and ISA progress reports since their meeting on 16 August. During the meeting, TAM had outlined a six-point action plan that included appointment of a security officer and a security agency, expansion in the number of homes with peoplemeters in the six top metros, an industry review of the viewership research processes, independent audit of outlier homes, faster rotation of the peoplemeter homes and setting up of an internal audit team.

    Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Star India CEO Uday Shankar said: “I am glad that I&B Ministry has asked TAM to explain but how do we know that how many boxes are functional? There is no system of public audit. How do we know that the data which is collected has no uncertainty in that?”

    Shankar further said, “TAM is clouded in secrecy and according to me anything that isn‘t transparent and is under secrecy is subject to distortion and corruption.”

  • TAM: Arvind Sharma asks broadcasters to be patient as changes take time

    TAM: Arvind Sharma asks broadcasters to be patient as changes take time

    MUMBAI: Television broadcasters need to have patience as all the stakeholders are taking steps to move to a system of audience measurement acceptable to all, said Advertising Agencies Association India (AAAI) president Arvind Sharma, while speaking exclusively to Indiantelevision.com.

    Sharma’s counsel of patience follows outright rejection by broadcasters of the proposals forwarded by TAM Media Research to fortify its existing television ratings system.

    Sharma is pinning hopes on the proposed Broadcasters Audience Research Council (BARC) becoming operational in the next few weeks. A monitoring team constituted by BARC will then make sure that TAM carries out the commitments it has made.

    AAAI and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) had a meeting with TAM officials on 16 August during which the television ratings provider outlined a six-point action plan.

    The six steps outlined by TAM include appointment of a security officer and a security agency, expansion in the number of peoplemeters in six top metros, an industry review of the research processes, independent audit of outlier homes, faster rotation of the peoplemeter homes and setting up of an internal audit team.

    AAAI is hoping a meeting of AAAI, ISA and Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) will happen in the next few days to finalise the modalities of setting up and making operational BARC.

    Sharma said, “I completely understand the growing skepticism. It is only action and demonstration of action which will change skeptics into believers in the sense that something is happening.”

    “In real terms what will happen is that we are hoping that BARC will be created within weeks and there will be a team from BARC which will monitor the progress closely,” Sharma added.

    His argument is that unless the industry has the ability to monitor the progress in improving the audience measurement system, any timelines will make no sense.

    Sharma said he hopes a BARC team to monitor audience measurement is put in place pretty soon.

    Asked about how media agencies not present at the meeting on 16 August and those who are not a part of either AAAI or ISA can be taken into confidence, Sharma had this to say: “The Joint Industry Body (JIB) which was supposed to be guiding TAM has not been functional.”

    He said the fact that TAM has specified some definite action steps was in itself a good signal. “The rest will be up to BARC to assess whether the proposed steps are adequate for the short run and make sure that they get implemented.”

    About a decade ago when there were two suppliers of television ratings – INTAM and TAM, each had their own specific number of meters. The industry stakeholders at that time decided to pool in their resources instead of paying money to two agencies and make the study more robust.

    The problem arose when a list of some peoplemeter homes was leaked and then allegations of manipulation of data were made. “So, if a (television) channel wanted to play mischief, it could target three or four peoplemeters homes through extra activations and that would make a huge difference”, Sharma pointed out.

    The JIB, when it was functioning about a decade ago, had laid down a lot of processes and rigorous rules for how the sampling would be done and had also introduced electronic checking,
    validation of data, etc.

    “Associations have to follow their processes. We just have to be a little patient in letting things fall into place. We are definitely moving forward. I am sure of it. The whole point of having associations is to carry members along even though the solutions may take longer to reach,” Sharma said.

    His philosophical view was that people involved ultimately accept the changes even if it takes a little longer.

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