The trouble with television ratings
Does Indian tv industry have what it takes to fix the ratings mess?
August 17, 2012 – “If ratings go, there will be anarchy. Let us put plan B into place,” says Ashok Venkatramani, CEO, MCCS, the company that owns ABP News and other channels. It sums up what everyone — broadcasters, advertisers, analysts and investors — thinks needs to be done in the wake of the ratings controversy.
Ever since NDTV filed a lawsuit against Nielsen Holdings late last month, alleging the latter brought out corrupt data, there has been continuous babble. Now, as the noise peters out, the feeling within the Rs 33,000-crore Indian television business is, “How can we rapidly migrate from here?” says Sunil Lulla, managing director and CEO, Times Television Network. Advertisers echo that sentiment. Says Sanjay Tripathy, executive vice-president, HDFC Life Insurance, “It is high time we built confidence in the process.”
How should one do so? Should it be by doing what NDTV wants: Suspending ratings data brought out by the Nielsen-Kantar joint venture TAM Media Research till it fixes the problems? That is what happened in Turkey last year. In India, nobody likes the idea because Rs 11,600 crore of TV ad revenues hang in the balance. “As a planning metric, TAM continues to hold,” maintains Satyajit Sen, CEO, Zenith Optimedia.
Read more: http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/the-troubletelevision-ratings/483475/