TRAI proposes allowing multiple ratings agencies in the country, and TAM is ready to return

In 2008, television rating services on a commercial basis were provided by TAM Media Research and Audience Measurement and Analytics Ltd. Fast forward to 2024, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) proposes allowing multiple ratings agencies in the country, and TAM is ready to return.

TAM, a joint venture between Nielsen (USA) and Kantar (UK) has applied for a license as a ratings and audience measurement body with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Interestingly, industry stakeholders, long reliant on the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) since its 2015 accreditation, are surprisingly open to the idea of multiple agencies.

The hope is that this move will lead to reduced uncertainty in viewership data, minimise potential bias, increase transparency, and ultimately empower broadcasters to make better-informed decisions.

“While research and analysis are crucial for informed decision-making, they shouldn’t be the sole deciding factor. Third-party monitoring, often conducted by rating agencies, serves a vital purpose by validating publisher data and minimizing errors. Traditionally, the broadcast ecosystem has relied on a single rating agency, which is BARC. However, the introduction of a second agency, like TAM, can offer significant advantages,” said a media buyer who did not wish to be named.

Elaborating on the advantages they said, “Different rating agencies might possess complementary strengths. By combining data from both agencies, broadcasters can gain a more comprehensive understanding of their audience, leading to more targeted programming and advertising strategies.”

Stakeholders also mentioned how having data from two independent sources can help validate the results and increase overall confidence in the viewership metrics.

“This, in turn, allows broadcasters to make more informed decisions about content creation and ad buys,” the media buyer said.

Some however have a different way of looking at it.

According to Partho Dasgupta, ex BARC CEO and managing partner of Thoth Advisors having multiple rating agencies is theoretically a wonderful idea but practically one has to understand what the ecosystem spends on measurement in India and whether it’s agreeing to spend more to accommodate multiple agencies.

“One has to also understand the history and evolution. I have always advocated multiple data sets and use of respondent level data which unfortunately is yet to be implemented in spite of much talk through the years. I think more important is to measure TV plus digital and all forms of content in any pipe and we shouldn’t lose focus on that,” he said.

Many others agree with Dasgupta. A comprehensive data set is the need of the hour given broadcast is the not the only avenue for advertisers these days. In fact, digital has surpassed television spends. According to the latest dentsu advertising report, the AdEx is expected to touch Rs. 1,01,591 crore in 2024 with digital contributing Rs 50,857 crore.

“Currently, what the industry needs is a unified single-source multi-media measurement system on the lines of the global WFA framework, utilising the open-source code and frameworks provided by WFA on the ‘Halo’ platform,” said Sanchayeeta Verma, CEO, Carat India.

World Federation of Advertisers (WFA)’s Halo framework uses traditional single-source panel data to calibrate all of an advertisers’ campaign impression data.

In the framework a Single-Source Panel is used (i.e. the aggregation of multiple media consumption behaviours in one place), to calibrate a much larger dataset.This means using a Virtual ID (VID) model, ‘trained’ upon the panel, to calibrate the census log file data (i.e. impression data) associated with an advertisers’ campaign. This means that the universe of campaign impressions are used, not a sample.

The last thing stakeholders need is another BARC.

“When BARC came in to the picture it became a TAM-equivalent product, whereas the actual intent was to bring new technology to make it cheaper yet more robust,” Verma said.

In their consultation paper, TRAI highlighted their recommendations from 2020’s ‘Review of Television Audience Measurement and Rating System in India’ where they had said that the rating agency should be mandated to increase the sample size from the existing 44,000 to 60,000 by the end of 2020, and 1,00,000 by the end of 2022 using the existing technology. However, according to them, the BARC India is operating with a panel size of only 55,000 households.

Stakeholders feel otherwise about increasing panel size.

“With regards to increasing panel sample size, there is no end to it, and the cost increase may not justify the extent of data quality improvement.Putting in place industry-level multi-media measurement with a joint industry body (agencies, advertisers, and media partner ecosystem) is the need of the hour,” said Verma.

The industry is not fearing an information overload situation.

According to them skilled analysts can identify the most relevant data points from each agency and use them to create a clearer picture of viewership trends, allowing broadcasters to leverage insights to optimize their offerings. StoryBoard18