In a face-off between advertisers and news broadcasters over the issue of the periodicity of reporting television rating points, the former has opposed the broadcasters’ proposal to have TRPs of shows move from a weekly to a monthly format.
The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) last week had issued a letter to TAM, the body that measures television viewership in India, asking it to consider the option of reporting TRPs of programmes on a monthly rather than a weekly basis. The reason cited was that greater frequency of viewership data was marring the quality of content on their channels. If frequency were reduced, they said, it would help them focus on getting good content, rather than running after eyeballs.
Advertisers and media agencies are opposed. They see no connection between the periodicity of reporting viewership data and the quality of shows. The two are totally different issues, they say.
Says Amin Lakhani, principal partner, Mindshare, the agency that handles the media duties of fast-moving consumer goods major Hindustan Unilever, the largest advertiser in the country, “I am completely against this proposal. The objective of a ratings mechanism is to get as close to a viewer as possible, not away from him or her. This way, you are able to understand viewership patterns and trends far better and figure out how best to maximise your investment. A monthly reporting structure will not help. Not when viewership patterns change by the minute.”
This point is endorsed by a media heavyweight, Lodestar UM. Says Nandini Dias, chief operating officer of the agency, which has clients such as Coca-Cola, Tata Docomo and Microsoft, “The shorter the duration of the reporting period, the better it is because media plans will be far more accurate that way. Remember, it is accuracy that counts.”
Advertisers echo a similar sentiment. Says Rupika Raman, head of marketing, Garnier, “As advertisers, we would like to have as much granularity in our planning data as possible and getting reports on a weekly basis helps us evaluate and make course corrections to our campaigns. Given the dynamic nature of the television medium, shifting to a longer horizon (monthly) will not make sense.”
Manish Sharma, director (marketing), Panasonic India, said: “I don’t think a monthly reporting structure will work. We need to know viewership patterns by the minute so that we can make course corrections if necessary. How is monthly data going to help us?”
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Given the strong positions taken by each side in this matter, TAM, which is at the centre of the controversy, has opted not to tilt in any direction. It has told NBA it would need to speak to other stakeholders including, the Advertising Agencies Association of India, Indian Broadcasting Federation and the India Society of Advertisers.
“We are in discussions with NBA, following the letter we received from them last week. We have not made any commitment to them that we will provide data on a monthly basis. We are a data provider, whether it has to be monthly or weekly, is a call that the industry will have to take, not us,” TAM Media Research Chief Executive Officer L V Krishnan told Business Standard.
NBA, meanwhile, in a statement has said that it is expecting changes in TAM's reporting structure to be implemented from next month. "The NBA Board, in its effort to improve news broadcasting standards, has taken a decision to move from weekly to monthly ratings for all national news and business channels in Hindi and English," the body's secretary general Annie Joseph said. "The NBA and TAM are in discussions on implementation of this initiative which is being proposed to be introduced initially for a period of two years. Eventually the monthly format is expected to be implemented for regional news channels as well."
According to ad industry sources, the on-going tussle between broadcasters and advertisers is not new. Broadcasters had even made presentations to the TRP Committee set up by the Information & Broadcasting Ministry last year, highlighting their pain points with the current system of measuring viewership. At that time, the issue of frequency of reporting data was also discussed.
Industry sources also say that reporting data over a longer period serves the interest of broadcasters because any dip in viewership can be couched effectively. Advertisers clearly want to see the true picture instead.