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Television Rating Points, the audience measurement system on which ₹35,000-crore worth of advertising on Indian television hinges, was in the eye of a storm on Thursday over charges of manipulation.
The scandal has stirred a hornet’s nest for advertisers — on whether they are parking their money in the right channels. It has also brought back into focus TRAI’s recommendations on overhauling the operational framework of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, the joint-industry body for TV audience measurement.
Significantly, on Wednesday, the Minister for I&B Prakash Javadekar also made a case for rethinking TRPs, tweeting that “there should be a better way to monitor popularity”.
The controversy exploded when Mumbai Police’s crime branch issued a press note saying it had busted a racket, whereby the sampling metering system installed by BARC was being manipulated.
Fixing meters
The police got a tip off from Hansa Research, the agency installing the metering device, which had filed an FIR against an ex-employee, alleging wrongdoing. Three news channels allegedly gained from the meter fixing.
While BARC and Hansa both issued statements saying their systems are robust and they do keep a vigilant eye, it has once again raised the issue of relying too much on ratings to decide where to advertise.
Most advertisers BusinessLine spoke with said they had no other choice and the BARC’s system was the most definitive.
Shailesh Kapoor, Founder and CEO, Ormax Media, a media consulting firm, while commending BARC’s system, however, said there was some ambiguity over the news category. “One category where one can question the role of ratings is news. It can be argued that news has a larger social purpose to serve, and dependence on ratings has made news channels cater to the ‘entertainment’ needs of viewers, as that gives higher ratings,” he said.
Significantly, in 2019, news channels accounted for a significant percentage of share in the growth of ad volume — almost ₹3,000 crore. Over the last couple of weeks, a number of companies has been vocalising the need to advertise judiciously on news channels based not just on ratings but also on content quality.
A top executive at a leading FMCG firm said, “TRP is not the only metric by which we take a decision to advertise on TV channels. As an advertiser, one also looks at the kind of content, the look and feel and the word-of-mouth perception and kind of language used by a TV channel.”
(With inputs from Nandana James and Meenakshi Verma Ambwani)
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