08/06/2012 – In case you didn’t notice, the entire TV and advertising worlds, their aunts, cousins and dogs, are up in arms over the NDTV Group’s $1.3 billion lawsuit-grenade that has landed right in the center of their incestuous world. From advertisers to TV channels to media buyers, everybody is taking part in the newspaper column equivalent of the candlelight solidarity march.
“Of course, we’ve known this for years now.”
“TAM data is utterly corrupted.”
“Just 8000-odd homes cannot represent India.”
It is as if every single person in the Rs.13,000 crore TV advertising kingdom woke up one fine day and decided to follow NDTV’s lead and publicly denounce their undisputed king for over a decade, TAM.
Except in this case, it is not just the emperor who was naked.
It is instead the entire kingdom.
To understand why, consider these criticisms of TAM data.