The Hindu Business Line : TRAI for regulating television rating system

Some of the areas to be addressed in the paper are the minimum coverage required over different platforms, as well as rural and urban coverage of television ratings.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, March 28 Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released a consultation paper on the need for policy guidelines for Television Audience Measurement (TAM) or Television Rating Points (TRP) and one of the first questions it is seeking to address is the need for the Government to regulate the system of TRPs.

TRAI is taking into consideration that the entire advertising business on Indian television, ratings and thus channel prices to cable and DTH operators, all depend on ratings provided by just two agencies, aMap and the predominant agency TAM Media Research.

The reliability, comprehensiveness and accountability of ratings have been questioned in the past, says a TRAI release.

TRAI is acting on a request by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on growing concerns over such limitations and dependence on such ratings.

Some advertisers say they have been reconciled to the issues in existing rating samples and methodologies and agencies conducting them purely because the industry needs a standard or common data on the basis of which it can do business.

TAM, on its part, has stressed on the fact that it works in tandem with the industry, addressing markets that the industry wants covered.

The Indian Broadcast Foundation, Advertising Agencies Association of India, and Indian Society of Advertisers recently got together to announce a non profit organisation called Broadcast Audio Research Council, which plans to set up a network of five lakh people meters against TAM’s claim of a sample base of 8,000.

Some of the areas to be addressed in the paper are the minimum coverage required over different platforms, as well as rural and urban coverage of television ratings. The entire North-East and Jammu and Kashmir are currently not covered, and TRAI is hoping to also look at the need for ratings reflecting more accurately the popularity of Prasar Bharati’s channels.

It would also look at the need for measures to encourage competition in rating agencies. Stakeholders’ comments have been sought by April 21.

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