The TV news industry remains a divided house over the use of landing pages to move ahead of the competition. Although there is no legal bar over the use of landing pages for marketing/promotional purposes, the debate remains on the ethics of landing page being a means of distribution tactics to gain more viewership.

Since landing page is the default channel that comes up when a viewer switches on the set-top box, the debate is over the susceptibility of it being used to influence viewership.

Viewership on account of presence on the landing page gets measured by the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) since there is no mechanism to segregate landing page data from actual viewership. That said, BARC has introduced algorithms to detect forced viewership that might happen due to landing pages.

TV news industry split

ABP Network CEO Avinash Pandey believes that the use of landing pages is a regressive practice, which is bad for journalism since it gives an unfair advantage to those with deeper pockets. He also pointed out that distribution platform operators (DPOs) are forcing viewers to watch landing page channels for a specified duration.

"Landing page is a very regressive marketing tactic because consumers are being forced to watch a channel for a specific duration so much so that they are not able to change the channel even if they want to. It’s a big menace that also brings money game into the business. It is against journalism because consumers are being forced to watch certain news channels which they originally didn’t intend to watch,” Pandey said.

While stating that the growth in viewership/reach achieved due to landing pages is not real, he also suggested that DPOs should allow consumers to skip the landing page channel without having to wait for a specific duration.

Sharing a different perspective, Times Network MD & CEO MK Anand said landing pages help a channel in improving visibility. The viewership spike that happens due to landing pages is perfectly valid, he asserted.

“Landing Pages, barker channels, EPG promotion, etc., are methods to improve visibility of channels within the complex and multitudinous array of channels that viewers face on their set-top boxes. Much as products on supermarket shelves need some amount of On Shelf/ On location promotion. There is nothing “unwarranted” about such viewership. BARC measures viewership for advertisers to evaluate their media exposure. Exposure via landing pages does nothing lesser than an ad. So, this does not affect the advertiser who is the primary consumer of BARC data," Anand said.

What industry bodies think

In a letter to I&B minister Anurag Thakur recently, the News Broadcaster Federation (NBF) expressed its disappointment saying BARC had failed to address the landing page issue. As per the federation, the non-addressability of the Landing Page matter has compromised the whole measurement system.

On the other hand, the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), one of the key stakeholders in BARC, has praised BARC for introducing an algorithm into its data validation method to remove the impact of landing page on viewership. The data validation method, it added, directly uses inferential statistics to deliver better results across all genres.

While welcoming ISA’s statement on BARC’s landing page algorithms, BARC India Technical Committee Chairman Vikram Sakhuja told e4m that the algorithm deployed by BARC is capable of detecting forced viewership coming from a landing page which is then filtered out from the final viewership data.

He also stated that the landing page issue is being blown out of proportion by stakeholders in the TV news industry. “As an industry body, we have been hearing the concerns of news channels. We have met them and responded to most of their queries. In fact, they were satisfied with our responses,” Sakhuja added.

A short-term gain?

A senior executive with a leading news network pointed out that small but highly competitive genres can have massive outliers. He also said that the algorithm meant to tackle the outliers don't seem to be 100% operational in the Hindi and English News genres.

"The pecking order in all likelihood will change if the landing audience is removed. At times big brands tend to become destination channels, but if a news channel has taken exorbitant landing interventions it may still show higher reach than the deserving player despite the big news," the executive said, on condition of anonymity.

He also did not agree to the argument that the use of landing pages for better visibility is similar to displaying of products on a shelf. “Shelf display or opportunity to see is a weak argument in favour of landing pages firstly because it jeopardises measurement and is no longer a short-term sampling spurt. Secondly, if you want to remove bots in your digital expenditure, why would you not be concerned about the irrelevant audience as a buyer, as a planner, as a broadcaster, and as a policymaker who is supposed to keep the consumers' interest first," the executive stated.

According to the ad sales head of a leading Hindi news channel, landing page cannot be a long-term strategy for any channel since it is a costly and regressive exercise.

“Landing page allows certain channels to gain an unfair advantage over others. Some channels have used landing pages to grow their market share but they haven’t been able to sustain the growth since that can be achieved only through sticky content,” he said, adding that distribution can never be a substitute for good content.

Unending debate

Provocateur Advisory Principal Paritosh Joshi says the debate around the landing page is futile since what really matters is how many viewers are actually watching a particular channel. Landing page, he added, offers higher reach but to get more viewership one needs better content. He also noted that landing page is a huge cost that no broadcast company can afford beyond a certain point.

“The distribution platform will programme the STB in a way that you cannot leave the landing page channel for 30 seconds. After that, a viewer is at liberty to go to the channel of their choice. In terms of ratings, the landing page doesn’t help in getting too much by way of TRP. Beyond the 30-second reach, it won’t do any magic in terms of delivering stickiness. Time spent will only come if the content is sticky,” he explained.

“The rating only grows when reach grows into time spent. Until the reach remains reach it doesn’t do much. Buying a landing page is a very expensive way of buying reach. It’s a very high-cost customer acquisition strategy. I don’t think it is as big an issue as it is made out to be. It was never a big issue,” Joshi added.

What media agencies think

While stating that landing pages indeed help a channel get a viewership spike, Network Advertising Executive Director Harish Shriyan noted that the advertisers will have to go by whatever data is provided by the BARC since the landing page data is not reported separately.

"BARC doesn't provide landing page numbers and actual viewership data separately so it tends to get merged with the overall number. As agencies, we go by the overall viewership numbers and not on the basis of who has a landing page and who doesn't have one. My personal view is that landing page is not right," he said.

Meanwhile, Innocean Worldwide Communications Group Director Sridhar Balasubramanian stated that landing page only helps in getting a temporary jump in viewership. He added that media planners invest in genres like TV news based on multiple factors, including ratings.

"We depend on qualitative as well as quantitative factors to make our choices. If we were to look at news channel viewership per se then we are talking about decimals and second decimal in some cases so the differentiator, in that case, becomes the qualitative factor."

Balasubramanian also said that media planners look for some level of consistency while allocating media spends. “If there is a sudden spike we do try to find some insights as to what could have been the reason because of which this has happened."