TAM to stop giving TV ratings
What's the story
TAM Media Research will stop giving TV ratings from 29 Feb'16.
A new joint venture, Meterology Data Pvt Ltd (MDL), between BARC (Broadcasters Audience Research Council) India and TAM will manage panel meters and provide raw data to BARC India, making BARC India the sole provider of TV viewership data in the country.
TAM, however, will continue to provide non-TV rating services in India.
TVR
How is TV Rating calculated?
Television Viewer Rating (TVR) depends on the number of people watching a program and the time spent by the viewers watching it.
It is calculated using a people meter, which is a box attached to the TV set that collects data on age, gender, socio-economic class, location, duration, and channels viewed.
TVR is used by channels to sell airtime for advertisements and earn revenues.
TAM
What is TAM ?
TAM Media Research Pvt Ltd commonly TAM is a joint venture between Kantar Media Research and Nielsen to measures TV viewership.
It has one of the world's largest TV audience measurement panel comprising more than 12,000 TV people meters, a tool for measuring TV viewing habits of cable audience.
TAM has been providing independent TV viewership measurement in India for last 18 years.
BARC
What is BARC India?
BARC (Broadcasters Audience Research Council) India is a body which designs, commissions, and supervises TV audience measurement system.
It is a joint industry body which brings 3 stakeholders - broadcasters, advertisers, and media agencies - to establish a governance framework to help plan spending on media more effectively.
It was formed in March 2012 and started generating TV ratings from 2015.
29 Apr 2015
BARC commences television viewership rating
BARC India had commenced its first TV rating from the mid-Apr 2015.
The BARC India rating would provide an alternate option to the advertisers and broadcasters who had to rely on the currently dominant TAM for all television ratings.
Effectively, this would provide competition and help improve sanctity of measurements as TAM ratings had been questioned many times by the broadcasters.
1 May 2015
Enough room for both: TAM
A day after BARC India released its first report, questions had been raised on TAM especially when lot of advertising agencies and broadcasters had unsubscribed TAM's report.
This was also because the estimates from both the outfits - TAM and BARC India - were similar.
However, TAM CEO was confident that it would add more customers as there was enough room for both.
Personal
BARC India's coverage
BARC India reports data from 153.5 million TV households including 76 million rural TV households.
10 Feb 2016
BARC India's sample size will increase
The 12000 peoplemeters of TAM will be redeployed to increase BARC India's sample size from present 22000 to 34000 peoplemeters helping it in better capturing the viewership data.
BARC India will hold 51% stake and TAM will hold 49% stake in the new venture Meterology Data Pvt. Ltd.(MDL).
MDL will provide the back-end infrastructure whereas BARC India will compute and disseminate the data.