IRS to delay BARC rollout of viewership data

The Broadcast Research Audience Council (BARC), which is in harness to set up an alternative TV ratings management system in India with a self-imposed deadline of October, is in a real fix. The reason: Indian Readership Survey (IRS) 2013 data.

For starters, BARC had commissioned IRS to provide it with the baseline study for the panel designing. But as the IRS data, released in February, is in abeyance till a third-party validation following uproar by the publishers fraternity, BARC is stuck on the panel planning level.

“We are having some issues with the IRS. As they have withdrawn the survey, we do not have the baseline study to start our next level planning. Until we don’t get that data, we can’t design the panel. It’s all interlinked,” observed BARC chairman and Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd (ZEEL) MD and CEO Punit Goenka.

Goenka also added that BARC is working hard to meet the deadline. “BARC is on its way. We are working hard to achieve our October deadline,” he added.http://www.televisionpost.com/television/irs-to-delay-barc-rollout-of-viewership-data/