ITV

Tag: MIB

  • Tata Sky favours multiple agencies for TV audience measurement

    Tata Sky favours multiple agencies for TV audience measurement

    MUMBAI: Tata Sky, one of the leading DTH operators in India has suggested Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that there should be multiple rating agencies. The competition will bring in new technologies and new methods in analysis.

    “Yes, multiple rating agencies need to be promoted. Competition will  bring in new technologies, new research methodologies, new methods in analysis, new and better ways to ensure better data quality,” Tata Sky has said in its submission to a consultation paper on TV audience measurement floated by TRAI.

    On the contrary, GTPL Hathway believes that there is no need for competition in the television rating services to ensure transparency and accuracy.

    “If more television ratings agencies are allowed to compete then the sample size will reduce and might even get scattered demographically. Therefore to ensure transparency and accuracy, there is no need for competition in the television rating services,” GTPL Hathway stated.

    The DTH player also commented that BARC India is not transparent regarding sharing the methodology and the representation of the panel home amongst the various platform types.

    Both Tata Sky and GTPL Hathway suggested that the BARC shareholding body should also include members representing the DPO/DTH/OTT platform body.

    To address the issue of panel tampering/infiltration, GTPL Hathway suggested to increase the sample size of the panel household significantly, which will reduce the impact of tampering on overall TV ratings, which in turn will reduce the temptation to tamper with the panel homes.

    Tata Sky argues that there is an under representation of DTH customers amongst the existing panel homes and BARC has taken no steps to publish a list for transparency. The representation of HD homes also needs correction.

    On the question whether BARC India should be permitted to provide raw level data to broadcasters, the MSO said, “We agree with TRAI’s view that release of raw data to broadcasters may potentially compromise on secrecy of households and sanctity of the data. The proposition that availability of raw data would help in giving the broadcaster sharper insights into viewership behavior is not sufficient to take such a huge security risk. There are other ways of sharper insights into viewership behavior such as AI."

    "Provisioning of raw level data to broadcasters will definitely contravene the policy guidelines for television rating agencies prescribed by MIB. The accreditation system mentioned by MIB requires secrecy of panel households, while release of raw data to broadcasters may potentially compromise secrecy of households", GTPL Hathway stated.

  • BARC exhorts TRAI to strengthen existing TV audience measurement system

    BARC exhorts TRAI to strengthen existing TV audience measurement system

    MUMBAI: Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC), the country’s premier TV audience data measurer, has suggested to the Indian regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) that having more multiple measurement and ratings mechanisms may not be “advisable” and could create confusion. Instead, it was better to invest further in the existing currency with the goal to make it more robust.

    “Having more than one ratings service/currency would not be in the interests of industry, and, hence is not desirable. Instead of increasing number of ratings agencies, it would be advisable to invest in the existing system and make it even more robust and accurate,” BARC India has said in its submission to a consultation paper on TV audience measurement overhaul  floated by the TRAI.

    Making a case to further boost the functioning of BARC India, the organisation has said steps were needed to be taken to “increase the sample/panel through cost effective technologies” like sample return path data (SRPD).

    “TV viewership measurement systems across most mature markets are carried out by a single agency. The existence of more than one rating agencies (and currency) will create confusion and will lead to inefficiency in the market. When there are more than one data sets for a same set of channels, it leads to ambiguity,” BARC India has argued.

    TRAI had floated a consultation paper on ‘Review of Television Audience Measurement and Ratings in India’ on 3 December 2018 seeking feedback from stakeholders with a view to examine various aspects of the system, which is presently done by BARC India that is a joint venture amongst three industry organisations — the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA). The original deadline for making submissions was extended on request from the stakeholders.

    Arguing against promoting more competition in the audience measurement eco-system, BARC India has cited international media reports relating to this particular issue in the Philippines.
    “Philippines presents a typical example of confusion and ambiguity in market due to presence of more than one measurement agency. TV measurement in the Philippines is conducted by Kantar Media Philippines and AGB Nielsen Media Research Philippines. Data produced by the two companies are often used by competing channels to claim leadership,” BARC India has argued.

    Pointing out that accuracy of data can be ensured through larger panel that can, inter alia, be sustained by industry, BARC India has tried to put things in context by highlighting the US TV industry sustains a panel of 108900 individuals with a TV adex of $68 billion, while in India BARC India “runs a panel of 135,000 individuals with adex of approximately $4 billion”.

    However, for a more robust system to be in place, which will also strengthen BARC India, the organisation has said “regulatory and government support” was essential and the support should involve “mandating digital platform operators (DTH and cable), as well as TV OEM manufacturers (of smart TV sets), to share return path data from samples to measurement provider”.

    “To make data more accurate, there are steps required that go beyond the remit and domain of BARC. Legal and punitive framework to weed out panel tampering will go a long way in building further acceptance of our data,” BARC India has stated, reiterating its position on been backed by some legal teeth to fight attempts of data infiltrations and manipulation.

    While admitting that a high-tech landscape like audience measurement needed to constantly evolve as newer consumption and distribution modes and technologies were emerging (for example, digital consumption, proliferation of OTT platforms, etc), BARC India has made it clear it was exploring SRPD, second generation metre with newer detection techniques, and other technological solutions for TV measurement.

    “BARC India has also made progress in building capability to measure digital consumption with the goal of providing industry with cross platform and cross device video consumption: linear and time shifted, broadcast and digital. We have a strong foundation, established credibility and necessary transparency and accountability framework on which we can build further with emerging and suitable technologies,” the measurement organisation stated.

  • MIB directive on PwD-friendly programming leaves broadcasters sceptical

    MIB directive on PwD-friendly programming leaves broadcasters sceptical

    MUMBAI: Though laudable, a new government directive on making all TV shows on all channels specially-abled people friendly has left the broadcasting industry sceptical as it would be difficult to implement the directive across all genres of programming 24×7.

    A senior executive of a major TV company on condition of anonymity told Indiantelevision.com, “It’s impossible to execute this for the entire 24-hour programming cycle. This issue should be discussed with industry bodies like the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) and others before the TV channels figure out what to do. Anyway, most channel screens are already so cluttered and doing what the government wants us to do will also increase the programming cost.”

    The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) issued a letter dated 7 February 2019 regarding the concerns raised by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DoEPwD) in the past. The concerns were raised for the formulation of Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan) for achieving universal accessibility for persons with disabilities (PwDs) which had stressed that access to TV programmes for many persons with disabilities is denied due to lack of assistive technology.

    The ministry requested all TV channels, News Broadcasters Association (NBA), Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) and Association of Regional Television Broadcasters of India (ARTBI) to carry the same language captions and audio description along with the programmes and news reports by TV channels for accessing by differently abled people, vide advisory dated 13 June 2016.

    Concurring with the above sentiment, another TV executive, while dubbing the directive "unimaginative", said with the TV channels presently grappling with a new tariff regime and squeezed bottomlines, implementing the diktat of the government will put additional financial pressure on industry players.

    Another media executive of a regional news channel said, “Language captions are not that easy to place on a screen. You need expertise to reconstruct or translate it properly. For a news channel it is always live and to describe anything in a sign language you have to be very punctual. Manpower will also increase and lead to an increase in programming cost. The intention is very good; I’m in complete support of MIB. The implementation part is a bit difficult. The language caption will damage the look and feel of the channel.”

    The advisory stated that the media has always been in the forefront of taking up important issues/causes including those for the welfare of the disadvantaged sections of the society and in the recent past, Republic Day Parade with commentary/Independence Day Ceremony was carried with sign language interpretation for the benefit of differently abled people.

    MIB requested all the private satellite TV channels to carry TV programs with sign language interpretation for accessing by differently able people.

    NBA and Indian Broadcasting Foundation could not be contacted for comments.

    With an aim to make communications and TV services more accessible to people with disabilities (PWDs), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India had come out with a series of recommendations last year, including a confusing one suggesting that 50 per cent TV channels to be developed in PWD-friendly and accessible format over the next five years. TRAI suggested that manufacturers maintain accessibility standards for set top boxes (STBs), mobile phones and landlines. Box makers were given till 2020 to make or import at least one model in different variants in an accessible format.

  • Prasar Bharati’s Shashi Shekhar Vempati on DD India revamp, OTT plan, TRAI tariff regime

    Prasar Bharati’s Shashi Shekhar Vempati on DD India revamp, OTT plan, TRAI tariff regime

    MUMBAI: Shashi Shekhar Vempati is the first private sector executive to have a place on the Prasar Bharati hot seat. He is also one of the youngest CEOs at the organisation and in 2017 propelled it towards becoming a corporate 21st century public broadcaster.

    The pubcaster isn’t buckling under to the digital wave. The new Prasar Bharati under his vision is ready for the digital era. Recently, Doordarshan revamped DD India to an English news channel. In the latest week’s Broadcast Audience Research Council data, DD India is ahead of all private English news channels in the core target audience of NCCS AB: Males 22+ individuals.  

    Indiantelevision.com caught up with Vempati to talk about the success of DD India after the revamp, tariff order and Doordarshan’s OTT platform plans. Here are the excerpts:

    How has DD India made it to top slot in English news list? Any change in programming line-up?

    I think this needs a little bit of clarification. We have always known that the English viewership base of DD News was always quite high, but then DD news being a bi-lingual channel over the years, was being measured and reported in the Hindi genre. So, as a result, there was no reflection in BARC data of the size of the English viewership.

    What has really changed is that last year the Prasar Bharati board took a decision that we will have an English news channel in addition to the Hindi news channel and we will eventually position it as our offering to the international space as well. The reason is India doesn’t have a strong global voice unlike BBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today and CGTN. So, with that in mind, we re-positioned DD India as the English news channel, where the English content of the news generated by DD News will also go.

    Over the last six months, BARC has started measuring it, but they have not reported it. They started reporting it from January in the English news genre. What was already a reality is now getting publicised.

    How many hours of English content is there on the channel?

    Close to 70 per cent of the Fixed Point Chart (FPC) is English news and the rest is English documentaries as of now. But the work is in progress and over the next few weeks we will increase that and it will become a full-fledged English news channel. The next big thing will be DD News and DD India becoming full-fledged Hindi and English news channels respectively.  

    What is your point of view on mandatory sharing of sports feed with the public broadcaster? Will we see IPL this time on DD?

    See when ever such a consultation happens, MIB takes feedback of all the stake holders, so our role comes much later. At this time there is no such proposal to share IPL matches. If there is anything we will let you know.

    CCEA recently approved the ‘Broadcasting Infrastructure and network development’ scheme of Prasar Bharati. How do you plan to use the budget allocated for it?

    The scheme approved by CCEA will include some expansion, modernisation of studios and upgrading of satellite infrastructure. We have a long pending modernisation. (These are some long pending modernisation. Provisions have been kept for modernisation of existing equipment/facilities in studios which are essential to sustain the ongoing activities and also for High Definition Television (HDTV) transmitters at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.)

    What is the status of the proposed Doordarshan OTT platform? What type of content will the platform have?

    Sometime in 2019, we will get to it. Right now our priority is news. It is a little early to comment on that. Firstly, we have to get our basic digital assets in place, which is what we are doing right now with the rollout of our iOS and Android apps which happened on the budget day.

    We have about 55 or more active YouTube channels. Digitisation of the archive is happening. At some point in 2019 we will put out the OTT platform for some of the premium content and rare archive and upgraded content.

    What’s your take on the TRAI tariff order?

    I think India, as a market, is clearly innovating on pricing and this tariff order reflects that. It shows the move towards greater subscription-based revenues for the media industry and I think it is a positive move in that direction. From both consumer and the broadcaster standpoint it is a positive move. It also gives flexibility to the consumer.

  • Delhi HC dismisses PIL on OTT content regulation

    Delhi HC dismisses PIL on OTT content regulation

    MUMBAI: The Delhi High Court has dismissed a plea that sought for framing of guidelines for the working of OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Hotstar, according to a Press Trust of India report.

    The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting told the bench that online platforms do not need a licence to operate after which the petition was rejected.

    According to a PTI report, the petitioner NGO Justice for Rights Foundation claimed that the platforms show "uncertified, sexually explicit and vulgar" content that aren't for for public viewing. It mentioned shoes like Sacred Games, Game of Thrones and Spartacus as having vulgar, profane, sexually explicit, pornographic, morally unethical and virulent content which often objectify women.

    The petitioner also wanted the court to get the ministries to frame guidelines for the platforms and their content and even make them remove such restricted content.

  • Placement of channels on DD Free Dish on 1 March

    Placement of channels on DD Free Dish on 1 March

    MUMBAI: A few days ago, Prasar Bharati had invited applications from private channels for participating in its 38th online e-auction for filling up of 54 vacant of MPEG-2 slots on its DD Free Dish DTH service. It has furnished details on the upcoming process which will see channel placements take place on 1 March.

    Interested private channels were requested to submit their applications along with requisite documents and demand drafts on or before 6 February 2019 by also mentioning the genre and language of the channel. Scrutiny of the application will be done from 6-8 February 2019. The e-auction will be held from 11 February 2019 onwards followed by the issuing of allotment letters by 20 February. All payments must be made by 28 February. International Public Broadcasters licensed by the MIB can also participate in e-auction for MPEG-2.

    Categorisation of TV channels in different buckets in accordance with genres/language of channel and their respective reserve price for allotment of slots on DD Free Dish through e-auction is as below:

    The starting price for e-auction for the next slot, if available in the same bucket shall be increased by minimum incremental amount of Rs 5 lakh from the starting price of e-auction of immediate previous slot of the same bucket.

  • CCEA approves “Broadcasting Infrastructure and Network Development” scheme of Prasar Bharti

    CCEA approves “Broadcasting Infrastructure and Network Development” scheme of Prasar Bharti

    MUMBAI: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by the Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi today gave its approval to the proposal of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) regarding PrasarBharati's"Broadcasting Infrastructure and Network Development" scheme at a cost of Rs.1054.52 crore for 3 years from 2017-18 to 2019-20.

    Out of Rs. 1054.52 Crore, an amount of Rs. 435.04 Crore is approved for the continuing schemes of All India Radio and an amount of Rs 619.48 Crore is approved for the schemes of Doordarshan. The continuing schemes of AIR and Doordarshan are at different stages of implementation and are scheduled to be completed in phases.

    The cabinet also approved the launch of DD Arun Prabha Channel from Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh to fulfil the aspirations of people of North East Region. In addition to this, 1,50,000 DTH sets have been approved for distribution in different states in the country which will help people in the border, remote, tribal and LWE areas to watch Doordarshan's DTH programmes.

    Provisions have been kept for modernisation of existing equipment/facilities in studios which are essential to sustain the ongoing activities and also for High Definition Television (HDTV) transmitters at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata. Setting up of Digital Terrestrial Transmitters (DTTs) at 19 locations and Digitization of Studios at 39 locations, DSNG (Digital Satellite News Gathering) Vans at 15 locations and Upgradation of Earth Stations at 12 locations have also been approved.

    For All India Radio, the Scheme provides for FM expansion at 206 places, digitalisation of studios at 127 places are envisaged. FM expansion programme will benefit 13 per cent additional population of the country to listen the AIR programmes. Besides 10 KW FM transmitters would be set up along Indo-Nepal Border while 10KW FM transmitters would be set up in J&K Border. These will significantly improve the Radio and TV coverage along the border areas.

  • Sahara’s Tamil news channel Bharat Today awaits MIB nod

    Sahara’s Tamil news channel Bharat Today awaits MIB nod

    MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB)published the status of application for new channels in regional languages on 5 February 2019. In the last two quarters of 2018, six companies applied for 10 regional channels in total.

    Out of the 10 channels, four are from Eenadu Television, two are from LCGC Broadcasting and one each from Asianet News Network, Sidharth Broadcast, Sahara Television and Mavis Satcom.

    All the four channels of Eenadu Broadcasting i.e. ETV Life HD, ETV Cinema HD, ETV Abhiruchi HD, ETV Plus HD, were granted permission from the MIB.

    Out of the remaining six channels, five are news channels and a single non-news channel. All these six channels are under-consideration.

    Sahara Television, which is undergoing financial turbulence, has also applied for a Telugu news channel, Bharat Today, on 26 December 2018.

    Mavis Satcom has also put in an application for a Tamil news channel named Jaya TV on 2 January 2019, which is still under consideration.

    Jesus Entertainment which opted for a regional channel named Yahova TV on 8 August 2016 in Tamil language is also under consideration.

    In a recent update on 4 February, the MIB issued a notice informing all broadcasters that the online module for submitting applications for new TV channels is now operational on web portal www.broadcastseva.gov.in.

    It also stated that henceforth, all such applications for new TV channels should be made through online mode only and no application should be sent through offline mode. BroadcastSeva is the effort of MIB to provide efficient and transparent regime for the growth and management of the Broadcast Sector. After submitting the online application the broadcasters are required to submit some documents through offline mode. 

  • MIB makes online mode mandatory for new channel applications

    MIB makes online mode mandatory for new channel applications

    MUMBAI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has issued a notice informing all broadcasters that the online module for submitting applications for new TV channels is now operational on web portal www.broadcastseva.gov.in dated 4 February 2019.

    It also stated that henceforth, all such applications for new TV channels should be made through online mode only and no application should be sent through offline mode.

    BroadcastSeva is the effort of MIB to provide efficient and transparent regime for the growth and management of the Broadcast Sector. It provides a single point facility to the various stakeholders and applicants to make their applications for various permission, registrations, licences etc.

    After submitting the online application the broadcasters are required to submit some documents through offline mode. The documents are different for a company already holding channel/teleport permission and a new company.

  • MIB hikes ad rates for private TV channels

    MIB hikes ad rates for private TV channels

    MUMBAI: Just a few weeks ahead of election date announcements, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has taken a decision to revise the advertisement rates offered by the Bureau of Outreach and Communication (BOC) to private TV channels.

    The ministry noted in a statement, “The revised rates have been announced on the basis of a review committee constituted by the ministry which submitted its report on 1 January 2019.”

    “The revision would lead to an increase in rates of around 11 per cent over the rates of 2017 in respect of most of the private TV channels while it could be of a higher percentage for some others, as per their reach and TV ratings.”

    The ministry also announced that differential rate structures for news and non-news channels will be offered, depending upon their overall reach in the country. “The decision will also make it easier for TV channels to be empanelled with BOC in order to take advantage of the higher rates,” it noted.