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Tag: TAM India

  • Rentrak & comScore ink merger deal

    Rentrak & comScore ink merger deal

    MUMBAI: In a bid to give strong competition to Nielsen, which has been the industry leader in ratings measurement since time immemorial, Rentrak Corporation and comScore Inc have entered into a merger agreement. Under the agreement, the two measurement companies will combine in a stock-for-stock merger.

    It may be recalled that closer home in India, television ratings measurement agencies Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India and TAM India also joined hands only last month to form a new JV meter management company.

    Rentrak will merge into a wholly-owned subsidiary of comScore pursuant to the terms of the merger, which has been approved by the Boards of Directors of both companies. Each share of Rentrak will be converted into the right to receive 1.15 shares of comScore. Upon completion of the merger, comScore shareholders are expected to own approximately 66.5 per cent and Rentrak shareholders are expected to own approximately 33.5 per cent of the combined company on a fully diluted basis.

    The deal, which is expected to close early next year, values Rentrak at approximately $827 million. The combined valuation of the two companies is being pegged at $2.4 billion.

    comScore CEO Serge Matta will head the new combined company as CEO, whereas Rentrak vice chairman & CEO Bill Livek will become executive vice chairman & president of the new company.

    On the other hand, Mel Wesley will continue as the CFO and Rentrak’s current COO & CFO David Chemerow will serve as a strategic advisor to the CEO, focused on the successful integration of the two companies.

    The new company will also draw upon the collective talent at both companies to harness the experience and expertise of each organisation to redefine the future of measurement. The combined company’s board will consist of twelve directors – eight from comScore and four from Rentrak.

     

    Strategic Rationale

    By combining comScore and Rentrak’s products, talent and significant information assets, the new company will provide even more robust measurement solutions to the media and advertising industries, following the consumer whenever and wherever content is consumed.

    The combination will enable the company to introduce a more comprehensive and precise set of solutions for measuring media consumption and advertising across platforms, setting the standard for the next generation of cross-platform measurement solutions. Together, comScore’s digital audience and advertising solutions, combined with Rentrak’s census-based worldwide movie and video-on-demand measurement, and its massive and passive TV measurement offerings, will provide a more complete picture of the way people consume media today and in the future. The combined organization is expected to possess a unique breadth of knowledge, experience, expertise, and skill sets that cannot be duplicated, dramatically enhancing the range of capabilities and offerings for clients and the industry.

    “The merger of comScore and Rentrak represents an exciting milestone for our combined clients, uniquely skilled employees and shareholders. Together we have an even more powerful ability to deliver what our clients and the media industry have long been asking for: a comprehensive cross-platform measurement currency that accounts for all the ways in which content is consumed, whether that happens on a desktop, mobile device, live or time-shifted TV, video on demand or through over-the-top devices,” said Matta.
     

    “With the advent of digital technology, the time has come to offer the cross-platform measurement systems of the future: through which content owners will ultimately be able to quantify their entire audience, and agencies will have access to the cross-platform metrics needed to effectively plan and execute campaigns. This merger also recognizes the critical importance of combining digital and TV assets for next generation media measurement, which requires a higher degree of precision at both a national and local market level,” he added.

    “Both companies have been innovators in content and consumer measurement, advanced demographics and analytics, providing the industry with world-class digital, TV and movie consumption information. This merger will accelerate the pace of that innovation, and offer an improved solution for cross-platform measurement, not available anywhere else. Rentrak’s expertise in precisely measuring TV and movies, and comScore’s industry-leading digital measurement capabilities, are natural complements. Combined, our expertise and information assets will enable us to provide the industry with the most granular measurement solutions that reflect the ever-changing way that people are consuming content across platforms,” Livek said.

    “Bill Livek and his team have built a cutting-edge media measurement company that has moved our industry forward in many ways, and we could not be more excited to welcome them to the comScore family. We look forward to working with Bill and his team as we bring our companies together to create the most comprehensive set of measurement solutions available, delivering on our mission of making audiences and advertising more valuable,” said Abraham.

     

    Financial considerations

    comScore expects the transaction to be mildly dilutive to its Non-GAAP EPS in 2016, and accretive in 2017. The combined company is expected to have total synergies of at least $20 million in 2016 and at least $35 million in 2017. The company also anticipates a significant portion of the synergies to be revenue related, which it expects to grow over time with an attractive contribution margin.

  • TAM woos subscribers with mobile app

    TAM woos subscribers with mobile app

    MUMBAI: Even as it awaits the verdict of the Delhi High Court on the case filed by its parent body Kantar Market Research, media ratings agency TAM has taken a bold move to cement itself in the industry. A new mobile app has been created to facilitate easy data access by subscribers.

     

    The app, called ‘TAM India’, will provide weekly top line TAM data to subscribers through App Story (iPhone), Google Play (Android) and Blackberry World (Blackberry). It will be updated every Thursday, immediately after the regular release of TAM data to the industry. Subscribers will instantly be intimated about the update.

     

    Commenting on the launch of the app, TAM Media Research CEO LV Krishnan said, “Our focus, as always, has been to enrich our customers with actionable insights through credible data. With this first ever unique initiative of launching ‘TAM India’ mobile app, we have fortified our service commitment to the industry with that of anytime anywhere access to data and quicker decision making process for clients. I am especially excited about the different ways in which this mobile app will be of value to the senior management across advertiser, media agency and TV broadcast organisations.”

     

    On a weekly basis, the app will provide insights of different TV channel genres, markets, programmes and new promotables. At any given point in time, it will have data not just for the latest week, but also for the preceding four weeks.

     

    The following is the kind of data that will be available on the app

    · Channel Genre: Overall genre wise viewership data and five weeks trends for select genres

    · Markets:  Market wise viewership data and five weeks trends for select markets

    · New Programme Launches:  List of new programmes launched during the latest week on respective channels

    · New Promotables: List of new programme promotions on respective channels during the latest week

     

    The app will also provide a feature to bookmark a favourite market or genre which will be shown as a first screen from the next update. The app is available for download on the TAM website www.tamindia.com.

  • Kantar Media bags TV audience research contract in Cambodia

    MUMBAI: The Cambodian Broadcasting Service has awarded Kantar Media a two-year contract for television audience research.

    Kantar Media will record the television viewing habits of more than 500 homes in specific regions and urban areas including Phnom Penh, Siem Riep and Battam Bang using a personal diary service. Clients will use Infosys+ analysis software to conduct in-depth analysis of the recorded viewing habits including what they watch, when they watch it and for how long.

    Mai Tran, MD of Kantar Media in Vietnam who will oversee the new service, comments, “Our expertise in measuring Kantar Mediua audiences using a secure and transparent methodology will ensure the data can be used by broadcasters, agencies, local and global advertisers to optimise their marketing campaigns. It will give Cambodian Broadcasting a holistic overview of TV viewing habits within the market.”

    The contract, which will begin this year, extends Kantar Media’s footprint for audience research to 62 countries worldwide including eight Asian Pacific countries (Australia, China, Cambodia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam).

    Kantar Media is a joint venture partner with Nielsen in TAM India, India‘s sole TV audience measurement agency.

    Kantar Media Audiences Global CEO Richard Asquith said, “We are delighted to have been chosen to deliver the first TV audience measuret service in Cambodia. The media landscape is evolving rapidly in this dynamic region and we are confident that we can meet the industry’s need for audience measurement that will complement and support the growing TV ecosystem.”

  • ‘You cannot build a sample on psychographics’ : LV Krishnan – TAM India CEO

    ‘You cannot build a sample on psychographics’ : LV Krishnan – TAM India CEO

    Media research agency Tam is in an expansion mode. Recently, it increased the number of peoplemeters from 4800 to 6917. And as direct-to-home (DTH) and conditional access system (Cas) took root, it also came out with the Elite Panel. The aim: to give broadCasters and media planners an idea of what the cr?me de la cr?me consume.

     

    Indiantelevision.com’s Ashwin Pinto caught up with Tam India CEO LV Krishnan to find out how the agency is gearing up to meet the challenges that new distribution technologies are throwing up.

     

    Excerpts:

    With conditional access system (Cas) and direct-to-home (DTH) taking root, what is Tam’s strategy going to be?

    We expected digitisation to happen sooner or later. We have been getting ready for it since a year. In April 2006 we released our first study under the Blinx series where we had the first DTH penetration data coming out. We also did a multi-city study on what was happening on Cas. We looked at the international availability of technology that could be used to measure these two platforms.

     

    We began work on the digital peoplemeter which we call the TVM5. Today all the six metros are completely aligned to the TVM5 digital peoplemeter. The peoplemeters are technologically hybrid. This was stage one done last year. We expanded the panel two weeks back and introduced the Elite Panel. After that, quite a large number of homes in the Elite Panel have moved onto DTH. In the regular panel a significant amount of homes are converted to Cas.

     

    This is clubbed with the C&S (cable & satellite) data and sent to the industry for usage. While this happens and the market moves from analogue to digital, there is growth in DTH and Cas for both panels. To validate this we are doing a regular penetration study. The data for this month will be out shortly. We will do studies in February and March to find out DTH and Cas penetration in the notified areas. It will be matched with our Elite Panel penetration also to see if it matches with those kinds of homes. Then data will go out to the user.

    Will Cas or DTH prevail and why?

    It is difficult to say which one will succeed. Each has advantages. Finally it is the service ability that counts. The demand is there. Pricing is important.

     

    Then there is the marketing activities done. Feedback is that demand for set top boxes is rising dramatically. But the service ability is the need of the hour. This is preventing more penetration.

    Tam has also increased the number of Peoplemeters and coverage area. Could you talk about this?

    We have been working with the joint industry body (JIB) for the last year and a half to look at the next step. Hence the decision to go to 7000 peoplemeters.

     

    Three things prompted the expansion. Firstly the universe has changed since the last expansion that happened in 2002 – 2003. The number of C&S homes has increased. New towns have been added on different strata of the population. The second reason is the sheer amount of fragmentation that is happening. With the number of channels available, TV viewing has become more fragmented. To look at data from specific segments of the population you need to go deeper. The Hindi speaking markets which is the North and West is where the bulk of the new metering has been done.

     

    In the South, the time spent on viewing is higher in proportion to the number of TV homes present. More samples have been added there. Then we wanted to plan for the future with new platforms coming in. You will see further fragmentation with DTH and Cas arriving. IPTV is also soon to launch. We wanted to be ready for this change.

    How much has Tam invested and what have the challenges been?

    The expansion has taken 10 months of work. We started last February. We moved from 73 towns to 151. We brought in the digital peoplemeters. At the same time we needed to ensure that the homes are counseled to deliver quality research. It has been great working along with the industry. Over Rs 250 million has gone into the expansion.

    Why did it take it so much time to expand?

    We touched 4800 in 2003. In 2004 there was no establishment study. We had to wait for 2005 to see the kind of growth rates that have happened. When we got NRS 2005 there was also census data for 2001 which came out in 2005. That data came to us in the second half of 2005.
    ‘We are examining the possibility of expanding the Elite Panel to other markets like Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata‘

    How do you choose the homes and how is user compliance ensured?

    The homes are chosen on the basis of key control variables divided into primary and secondary variables. The former are socio economic classes, the ability to watch C&S or terrestrial television. Number of home members is another variable. Apart from that, secondary variables include ratio of colour to black and white TV sets. In 2007 we have added a new variable, which is the presence of kids. A metric is used to gauge the compliance of a home to the peoplemeter which is button pushing. So we do surprise checks with these homes. Once we are sure that they are stable we add them to the reporting data.

    Rival ratings service aMap talks about the importance of pyschographic profiling and that 25+ SEC A is not enough if you want to know what for instance an executive consumes. Your views on this?

    You can include additional variables. However a panel needs to be put on strong foundation stones. They have to be stable over a period of time. Then you look at SEC, cable and satellite or terrestrial. Pyschographic variables are ever changing in nature. You cannot build a sample on psychographics. If you list pyschographic variables, which could be 100, you diminish your sample to miniature levels.

     

    You cannot have attitudinal factors being linked to viewing behaviour patterns. Attitudinal factors can be included in one off studies. But to expect a panel to give you solutions for every little thing will not be possible. A panel is supposed to give continuous behaviour changes so that you can do projections for the future based on past behaviour.

     

    In a dynamic market you have a cable operator changing the channel line-up, marketing etc. If you can pick up these changes and tie it to the numbers you can make better sense of the data rather than try to report things based on things that are affected by changing attitudes. It is important to have data that gives a clear picture of the changing marketplace rather than have a variable that is there for the sake of it.

    How has the channel standings been affected by the expansion of the panel?

    In general the expanded panel has come in with Cas implementation. Pay channels have taken a hit in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata. But the figures will improve as homes move to Cas or DTH. Distribution is key in the towns. Also when you geographically expand your ratings presence you see a difference in terms of power cuts. This environmental factor also affects channel shares. A strong distribution of channels in smaller towns will mean that share is not affected.

     

    Regional channels share has gone up. So has news. The free to air channels are also faring better. The mainline channels continue to stay strong. Certainly there is more fragmentation. Music and the English entertainment channels are stagnating. This has to do with content along with marketing. Colour TV sets have jumped to 70 per cent in the C&S homes. Remote control penetration has also grown. There is faster surfing and more sampling. The ad rate viewership is slipping vis-?-vis programme viewership. There is a 20 per cent difference. News has eaten into the share of GEC.

    What findings has the Elite Panel thrown up?

    The elite segment spends a limited amount of time on television. It is around an hour and a half each day compared to two hours and 10 minutes for the general panel. For those who own a DVD player it goes down further to around an hour and 10 minutes. The more the leisure opportunities present, the less he/she watches television. They are extremely choosy. What is interesting is that although the main language of 45 per cent of the Elite Panel is English, the time spent on watching Hindi content is more watched. English entertainment needs to touch the heart of the consumer better.

     

    It is clear that the members of the Elite Panel do not approve of the quality of content on the English entertainment channels, which is one reason why they are not spending much time watching television. They are basically surfing through the English channels and then going back to the Hindi shows. The English channels need to understand what the viewer requires. The elite segment represents an opportunity.

    Can you highlight any other findings that emerged from the Elite Panel?

    Firstly we need to segment general entertainment into two parts. One is soaps and the other is reality shows. The former is consumed by the housewife while the latter is consumed by the youth. On a national scale you have one TV set homes mostly. But in the Elite Panel there are multiple TV set homes. So while the overall numbers are the same when you break it down into soaps and reality shows the viewing is split evenly in the Elite Panel. This means that the second TV set is being used to watch reality shows by the younger members. This gives channels an idea of the kind of shows that can be created for the Elite versus what is being done for the rest of the country.

     

    The Elite segment has nuclear families with bigger homes. There are two kinds of homes. One is executive which has lesser kid’s, while some of them are Dink (double income no kid’s) homes. The business family is larger. The day parts both watch are different as also is the content.

     

    Another difference is the behaviour of this audience towards weekends. In a national panel time spent declines. Here it goes up. News is watched a lot. Sports viewing depends on the significance of an event. It needs to be interesting. They will watch an event whether it is cricket or tennis or Formula one if the match is interesting. Schumacher’s last Grand Prix touched a rating of over three in the Elite Panel while in the national panel it was 0.22. Viewing of sports depends more on the quality of the match rather than on the tournament per se. Kids and movies fare better on the Elite Panel.

    What has the media feedback been like for this service?

    It has been good. We are examining the possibility of expanding it to other markets like Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata. It has been two years since we started work on the panel. The challenge was to keep the panel intact. We have 125 homes in Delhi and 125 homes in Mumbai.

     

    Technologically we had to make sure that data could be downloaded which is not easy given that the telecom infrastructure is already overloaded. We did special techniques to recruit homes. We spoke to them in terms of what we are trying to do. We had trained people visiting the homes with laptops.

    Can sports viewing for non-cricket grow?

    There are some learnings from cricket. Firstly you need star appeal. Would you watch cricket without Sachin, Saurav, Dravid and Dhoni?

     

    Secondly media coverage is crucial. The reason why the soccer World Cup last year fared so well was due to the enormous coverage and hype in the media particularly in newspapers. Then there needs to be drama. Cricket has controversy, which creates aura. For instance Saurav coming back sparked debate.

    What is your outlook for radio this year?

    We have expanded our measuring to 32 stations now for AdEx. Earlier it was 13 stations. We are seeing radio ad expenditure growing.
  • In pursuit of what in 2007?

    In pursuit of what in 2007?

    The CAS word gets TAM India CEO LV Krishnan thinking about what this brave new world could mean for the likes of the airtime sales exec and media planner.

    In the shifting sands of time the mind does seek for a grip; In the solitude of space constant change is unnerving; only the whiff of victory
    propel one to destination

    As the sun set on 2006, the glow of the last rays had fired the embers left behind by the changes initiated in the arena of TV channel ground distribution during the last few months. The beginning of 2007 itself is seeing a market place oscillating between the old fashioned Analog Technology to a new era of Digital Technology unleashed on the unsuspecting TV viewers by the Government, Multi System Cable operators, Broadcast Satellite owners as well as Telecom companies. With technology gizmos flying all around as well as the jargons attached to it, one is left wondering, what is going on in the simple minds of a Media Planner and Air time Sales member of our industry? Does large industry issues we debate about, top their concern? Take a guess…

    As one mingled with many of them, the concerns or issues were the same… What are we pursuing at the end of the chase?

    A perspective from the Media Planner’s diary

    March 2006: I read in today’s Media website that the Delhi High court has given a ruling to the effect that Conditional Access System is mandatory in South of Mumbai, Delhi & Calcutta for receiving pay TV. This was going to happen in the next few weeks…

    …Whoosh!

    June 2006: It didn’t happen…does it ever happen as proclaimed?

    …Zip…Zap!

    December2006: Will it happen this month? Will await Dec 31st to know…

    January 2007: It happened!

    As I walked into my office the very next day…the first day of the New Year, I wondered…

    Gosh, what will happen to my life? My Brands – Media Plans & Buys are ready to be executed, but now, will I have to put everything on hold? What will I answer my client? Will plan deliveries fall down in the 3 Metros? By how much? What is TAM data indicating?

    In a confused state of mind, I decided to get out of office to take a walk along the Worli sea-line hoping for some fresh breath from a magic genie.

    Yes, the winter air was filled with a new whiff. No doubt it was energizing my legs as I broke into a steady walk. As I took a sample of the freshness of 2007, the mind cleared to open up new possibilities staring at us… potential of ensuing change began to dawn on me. The revolution was just beginning and I was determined to ride the wave of change.

    With a renewed vigour, I walked back to my desk to put a call to my client. He was pretty surprised to hear me say that I will be coming down to meet him the same evening to explain to him the consequences of changes happening in the TV media.

    Next, I started with some desk work. I wanted to understand the magnitude of the change expected to be brought about by the CAS notification on Zone 1. A simple analysis from NRS 2006 as well as the TAM CAS document circulated earlier indicated to me that 1.6 million C&S homes across the 3 metros of Mumbai, Delhi & Calcutta will come under the purview. This meant one-fifth (20%) of C&S homes in the 3 metros or just one-twentieth (5%) of C&S homes represented by TAM All India Class I town panel.

    Hence if all the homes in the notified areas for CAS in the 3 metros did not go for set top boxes, the maximum impact in reach of my media plan due to of loss of viewing of pay channels on a National level is going to be less than 5%. In other words, the planned reach of 60% on a National scale could come down to 57%. This could only be the worst scenario. But things are already looking better with demand for set top boxes on the rise with each day passing…

    I then looked at my media plan composition – list of Pay TV channels & Free-to-Air TV (FTA) channels used to deliver the reach. On comparing this with the Free-to-Air channels available, I decided to make a few minor adjustments whereby by making minor spot changes between Free-to-Air & Pay TV channels, I was easily able to hike up the planned reach to 58% on a National level!

    As I started receiving the news that the demand for CAS set top boxes are increasing, I decided to stretch the brand campaign by a few days. This could help me leverage any additional homes that moved into using a set top box for accessing/viewing Pay TV content.

    What made me feel even more confident about achieving the media plan goal was the news that almost all the homes acquiring a CAS set top box will receive all the Pay & FTA TV channels he used to get before Dec 31st. This meant that, while in theory CAS set top box was supposed to act like a filter by providing the viewer with the choice to subscribe, at present it is only used as an enabler to watch all Pay & FTA TV channels which was available to the viewer earlier as a simple cable TV home. Thus, viewer behaviour in terms of channels watched post CAS set top box acquisition couldn’t have changed, thereby helping me to deliver my planned reach goals too.

    I am awaiting with bated breath the first TAM CAS penetration study later this month, more to understand the length of time it is going to take for viewers to start experiencing a shift to the world of digital content. I for one will be looking for the profiles of the CAS homes to try and plan execution of the new brand creative my marketing manager has promised. I have lots of ideas up my sleeve, waiting to explode in the digital space!

    A perspective from the Airtime Sales member’s diary

    January 2007: I looked up my watch and exclaimed “Damn it, going to be late again.” It was all because of this silly traffic…

    2007 had started with a sense of purpose. Yes, there were changes happening around. Positive, I could say. I was heading to meet a very important Up-market personal product marketing head. I was pleased that I could get the appointment after struggling for some many months to get it…only because I was going to show him something different!

    From the telephonic chat I had with him yesterday, I could sense his voice perk up when he heard about my channel’s new programming, showing promise among his set of exclusive consumers.

    I got out of the cab and rushed across the street clutching hard to my presentation papers. I approached the front office of the organization gasping for breath. The receptionist looked at her watch, acknowledged my presence on the intercom and then, silently led me to the massive board room. As I sat, wrapped around by the chilly air sent out by the humming air-conditioner, my mind whirred with excitement. At the same time, I had a sense of apprehension as it was for the first time I was going to present the findings about my channel from the Elite panel and I was not sure, how the marketing head could react.

    Suddenly, a booming voice saying “Hello” came in from behind. As I turned around, I came in contact with the marketing head, who was by then extending his arm to welcome me. Pleasantries were exchanged and we got quickly to the brass tracks.

    I opened my small presentation folder displaying the sheets about his products and target consumers. I could see him nodding to my opening statements. I was feeling relieved that I was bang-on in guessing his product’s consumer profile. This led me to draw up the next few sheets that explained the profile of viewers my channel catered on a daily basis. I could see him show inquisitiveness to my reports. Soon we got drawn into the discussion about my channel’s performance and the question I was waiting for all along got popped out. “How do you say that my consumers watch TV and therefore content related to your channel?”

    My best was yet to come. I opened up the data from the Elite panel to reveal to him the new, latest finding…

    His Up-scale consumers did spent time watching TV (unlike his thinking), but they spent less time watching it vis-?-vis the average TV viewer and even an SEC A TV viewer on the TAM National panel.

    The other important observation that impressed him was that the TV viewership of the Elite viewers was far more fragmented as compared to an average viewer and also the SEC A viewer in the National panel.

    While 26 channels accounted for 80% of viewership for the SEC A viewers, it took 35 channels that made up 80% share of viewing for the Elite viewers, a testimony to the wider content preference for the Elite! This invariably means that, in order to reach to the Elite viewers, the marketing head had to consume air-time across more channels of distinct content appealing to his Up-market consumers.

    As I progressed with my charts and comments, the final one hit the bulls-eye. Certain genres like English Movie channels, Business news, English news & English Entertainment channels had a visible skew towards the Elite audience as compared to even the SEC A viewers in the National panel. This made the marketing head look up. I could see a huge smile on his face as he made the comment “I always knew this and keep saying so to all my team members.” I just smiled back at him with the hope that I could have finally bagged the campaign, I thought, that deserved to run on my channel.

    It did happen as I visualized the very next moment. The marketing head picked up the nearby intercom, spoke a few words to the person on the other end, and then turned around to me to say the final words, the most precious words I have been waiting to hear “…the campaign will include your channel too.”

    That evening, I was certainly heady. We celebrated the win back in the office with a champagne pop up. 2007 indeed has begun for me in a new way I couldn’t have imagined a few days back. A real nice kick start and I hope to keep riding that way!