Industry experts say there is no difference between the two terminologies in terms of definition, and that there will not be any change in the way television viewership is measured
'BARC renaming Impressions as AMA will avoid confsion'Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has renamed its popular viewership measurement terminology Impressions’000 as AMA’000 (Average Minute Audience in '000s).
The industry body announced the change in an email sent to all its subscribers on December 1. “Being an industry body, it is imperative to evolve and work continuously to provide the industry with data and metrics that match global standards,”read the email.
BARC defined Impressions’000 as the number of individuals in 000s of a target audience who viewed an "event", averaged across minutes. It is also known as Television Viewership in Thousands (TVT) or Average Minute Audience (AMA). There is no difference between the two terminologies in terms of definition, and as per industry experts, there will not be any change in the way television viewership is measured. In fact, the term AMA is more logical and avoids confusion as Impressions is a metric which is used in digital measurement also, they say.
According to Shailesh Kapoor, Founder & CEO Ormax Media, the renaming of Impressions '000 to AMA '000 is a decision that's logical and sound. "I have had my reservations about the term Impressions as a measure of viewership, as the word has different meanings and interpretations in the media industry depending on the context. Viewership is a time-weighted metric, and the change to AMA does well to bring this concept out clearly,” he shares.
The TV ratings agency renamed its viewership measurement metric Rat'000 to Impressions'000 In 2016. At that time, the decision to usher in this new terminology was taken to avoid confusion in the marketplace as BARC India was gearing up for its digital measurement initiative EKAM.
When they renamed Ratings as Impressions, BARC said it was done to maintain uniformity and avoid confusion when they get into digital measurement.
“There is no difference between the two in terms in definition and calculation. Back in 2016, when BARC started using th term Impressions, the ratings body communicated that in order to maintain uniformity with digital (BARC earlier had a plan to launch digital measurement body EKAM) and to avoid confusion, it was renamed as Impressions (which is also used in digital measurement). There was no single agency that was doing both TV and digital measurement together, and from an advertising point of view, clients were looking forward to a common agency that can evaluate campaign effectiveness both on TV and digital. Hence, BARC renamed ‘Ratings’000 as Impressions’000,” said a senior broadcaster on the condition of anonymity.
The terminology Impressions’000 is also known as AMA in Canada, Average Audience in USA, Audience in UK and Projections or Thousands (000s) in Australia.
Another senior industry observer said, “When BARC will get the digital measurement in future, there will be no confusion between the digital and TV impressions. Hence impression has been renamed AMA.”
In 2017, BARC India announced the phased roll-out of its much-awaited digital measurement service along with the brand name and logo of its digital measurement products EKAM. The idea was to provide industry with a single platform for all measurement products across TV and Digital. The EKAM suite of products included EKAM Pulse, EKAM Beam, EKAM Stream, EKAM Ad-Scan, and EKAM Integra.
