India’s TV viewing habits have been solely measured by Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India, the largest audience measurement company of its kind in the world. 

Today, the evolving content consumption landscape across multiple digital platforms has brought the existing audience measurement system into the spotlight, with many industry players questioning its genuineness and reliability. 

At the e4m Media Debate on the topic - ‘India needs multiple TV ratings providers’ held in Mumbai on Thursday, industry experts debated the existing rating system, with some supporting a single agency and others advocating for the establishment of multiple bodies to break the monopoly.

However, the unanimous view that echoed in the end was that BARC needs serious reforms.

ABP Network CEO Avinash Pandey, Chrome Data Analytics CEO Pankaj Krishna, 4 IR Technologies CEO Abdul Khan and Omnicom Media Group India CEO Karthik Sharma believed that a multiple rating system was the need of the hour to ensure fairness and efficiency in the system.

Those speaking against the motion and sticking to the one agency system were Paritosh Joshi, Principal at Provocateur Advisory, Karthi Marshan, Principal-Marshan.ink; Kailash Adhikari, Business Head, Sri Adhikari Brothers Network; and Strategic Marketing and Media Consultant Chintamani Rao, who joined the debate virtually.

The debate was moderated by Dr Annurag Batra, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld Media Group and Founder, e4m Group.

Opening the debate, ABP’s Avinash Pandey said, “The current state of TV rating system demands immediate attention. There is a dire need of fostering competition and promoting fair and transparent audience measurement methods to drive excellence in this field. I feel that a monopolistic landscape in TV ratings is detrimental to the growth and progress of the TV industry.

“BARC India has served the TV industry for over a decade but looking at various controversies it has gone through time and again, it is imperative to re-look at the organisation’s methodologies and discuss whether we need multiple agencies to enforce due checks and balances for a credible measurement of viewership.”

He further said that the emergence of OTT, other digital platforms and social media have disrupted the TV industry which necessitates a significant overhaul of the current audience measurement system.

“Today you consume the same news and entertainment content on multiple devices at multiple places. BARC is currently measuring household consumption happening on linear television. It is completely eroding the value that the content maker and broadcasters like us are giving,” he said.

Presenting opposing views, Rao said multiple measurement providers will not solve the problem and suggested that how to make multi-screen measurement possible is a thought that needs to be pondered on and not bringing more agencies.

“Yes, there is a change in the media ecosystem. Why doesn’t BARC measure is a wrong question and multiple measurement providers so that it can be measured is the wrong answer. The question to ask is how can we make multi-screen measurement possible.

“If there is a problem with the existing service provider, having more is not the solution,” he said, adding that the market is not big enough in India to support more than one measurement provider. 

Echoing the same views as Rao against having multiple providers, Karthi Marshan responded to a question on improving the existing system: “As advertisers, we have been accused of not paying up. I think everything that has been paid is by us. So you have to figure out how to be efficient with the money available and use it for the alleged research as well.”

However, Omnicom’s Sharma, who was for the motion, said that there was a need to replace the word ‘TV ratings’ with ‘content plus advertising ratings’ and rather than seeing the idea of more measurement providers as “competing” in the system, it should be seen as a complementary system.

“In a world which is so fragmented, if we look back and see from the lens of the consumer, they see multiple screens. I would replace the word TV ratings with broadly speaking content plus advertising ratings system which measures everything that consumers are trying to see. Rather than seeing it as a competing system, it can be seen as a complementary system.

“The obvious question is will it work? Is India going to be the only market? We can take a lot of lessons from the robustness that Fintech has brought in. There are many countries where two systems -- RPD (Return-path data) and people meter system-- exist, like, the US, Singapore, Australia and Malaysia. We can have as many systems as we want but the user has to be intelligent. We don’t need 300 rating agencies but we need more than one; not to measure the same thing. There is so much which is happening with the consumer and there’s room and excellence will come,” Sharma said.

According to Joshi, one currency is sufficient within a single market.

“Currency, in the sense of pecuniary currency, is three things – it’s a store of value, a medium of exchange and a unit of accounting.  Currency research provides these three things. You can’t have multiple currencies operating within a single market,” he said.

While advocating the idea of fixing the existing system and keeping a single currency, he said when you have an industry body in place where all the stakeholders are already represented, it becomes incumbent upon them to get the act together instead of complaining about it.

Responding to a question about the issue of alleged manual intervention in the rating system, Joshi said, “Manual intervention is not people fiddling with the data at BARC but it is the people trying to identify which homes have meters installed and then using the cable operator to nobble it. It is always the media owner who is implicated in corrupting a measurement system.”

Calling for more agencies to provide ratings, Khan criticised BARC’s linear television rating and said that a believable and robust system is the need of the hour to fix the issue.

“We need believable, measurable and robust measures which stick to the law of the land. Need a robust roadmap encompassing technology and newer genres. Need to know who is auditing research and where is it? Lastly, the available data should not be ignored,” he said.

Summing up the debate with the suggestions of the speakers that BARC needs to be reformed, Anurag Batra said, “The question is what do we need to improve? How do we improve it? How do we fund it? The suggestion that has come up involves a couple of things. One, it means measuring content consumption, not just the TV ecosystem. So digital has to be factored in.”

“Second, more real-time and more first-party data. Telcos are a solution. Who will pay for it? The way digital data is gathered, does not involve investment in new technology, or meters, and hence the cost of procuring the data should be very affordable. That's the solution,” he said, adding that the advertisers whose money makes the ecosystem go round have to be more active and involved in improving this ecosystem along with the agencies and broadcasters.

He concluded by saying that “BARC has served a purpose in the last decade. It has provided data. The intent of BARC is good. The action needs to follow the intent.”

According to Adhikari, if there are structural changes needed in BARC, all the stakeholders must suggest those changes.

“I don't see any reason for BARC to turn a deaf ear to it. Because BARC at the end of the day survives on our money. It survives on the money given by broadcasters, the advertisers, as well as the agencies. But we need to have just one currency. Because multiple currencies, or even a duopoly in the currencies will just create confusion,” he said.

Expressing a similar view, Krishna said to get this one currency, it could be five different stakeholders working together across regions and delivery mechanisms.

“But to get that one currency, it could be five different stakeholders working together across regions, across delivery mechanisms, but all cross-validating the data to churn out one unified currency, which does not have to be under a single form of measurement. That's the take. So, it's not about competition. It's about collaboration with multiple players,” he said.