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Fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) has directed all broadcasters, media buying and advertising agencies to send their feedback by July 18 on how rating agency TAM Media Research has impacted their businesses. This would help expedite the investigation on the rating agency, said a CCI official. TAM is a joint venture between Nielsen and Kantar Market Research.
CCI has sent notices to these firms as part of an ongoing probe on TAM following an allegation by public broadcaster Prasar Bharati for unfair trade practices in tracking television viewership in the country and violating competition norms.
The watchdog has asked stakeholders to tender information on their business model, source of revenues, market share as per television audience, comments on whether TAM has abused its dominant position and created any entry barriers in the market.
Prasar Bharati, which runs Doordarshan, has alleged that TAM has taken to unfair practices in rating media channels thereby causing great financial loss, besides affecting its reputation.
According to industry sources, TAM Media Research is owned by global advertising and marketing services provider WPP, which owns over 60 advertising and PR agencies in India, including GroupM, IPAN, Madhouse, Dentsu and Fitch.
A stakeholder on condition of anonymity said, “All 60 media buying firms control over 60 per cent of the market and are a part of TAM. They are supporting TAM because of the cross-holding. It is a big cartel indeed and the fact is that there is no other alternative. We need more rating agencies and a regulator.”
In the television industry, where about more than 30 per cent of the revenues come from advertisements, advertisers bank on TAM ratings in form of TRP/TVR. The data is collected using the electronic gadget ‘people meter’ connected to TV sets in sample households in regions with over one lakh population.
However, Prasar Bharati has alleged that the sample size of 8,000 homes in a country with population of over 1.2 billion could be misleading.
Subash Chandra-owned Zee Group, dissatisfied with TAM, in 2005 had tied up with another rating agency aMap, which shut down its operations in 2011. Industry sources attributed aMap’s failure to stiff competition.
Meanwhile, BSE-listed Esha Media Research, a media monitoring company, plans to launch its rating business this year with 30,000-35,000 people meters in the first phase.
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