The sight of television broadcasters unsubscribing from TAM data en masse is hilarious. These are the same companies that have for years cribbed about the sample size that TAM Media Research uses to measure television ratings. Now, when TAM has increased the sample size to include towns with a population of less than 100,000, many networks are staring at lower reach and rating numbers. This is because the entire focus of their distribution strategy was to ensure carriage in TAM towns. Except for a handful of broadcasters who invested in programming geared to small-town India, almost everybody else was happy getting great numbers from TAM's metro-centric sample. So when the coverage increased, their numbers fell.
What has added fuel to this fire is the pressure on the 12-minute advertising rule. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has ordered advertisement time be brought down from 15-25 minutes across different channels to a standard 12 minutes per hour of programming. This will push rates up by 20-30 per cent, especially for the large networks, say analysts. The top five networks - Star, Sony, Sun, Zee and Network18 - control just over 65 per cent of the total viewing time spent on television. Their networks house anywhere between 10 and 35 channels each.
However, if TAM's numbers show lower reach and ratings, then the rate increase is in jeopardy. That, says one theory, is why everyone is in such a hurry to unsubscribe, even though advertisers are saying, "Let us go with TAM till the Broadcast Audience Research Council's data start coming in".
Next, watch out for a gag on media and advertising publications and websites that carry TAM data. Earlier this year, TAM stopped sharing channel- or network-specific numbers with reporters because broadcasters, its main customers, didn't like it. For example, if I want an analysis of how the five networks are doing on audience share, I have to "request" one of the networks to share it. And I have no way of authenticating such data. This display of irrational adolescent behaviour from TV broadcasters is truly amusing.
For the cringe-inducing stuff, the graceless sacking of four senior editors from Forbes India by Network18 is a good example. The editors claim they were eased out for demanding promised employee stock options. Network18 officials put it down to newsroom integration issues. Whatever the reason, it tells you more clearly than ever why good content eludes India's newspapers and news broadcasters. The attitude of most broadcasters and newspaper publishers to the time and resources that good content needs remains one of impatience. Across the board, in newspapers and TV companies, training, mentoring and letting editors build world-class teams are treated as a time-consuming cost head .
For a good cry, look at our priorities on media policy. The ministry of information and broadcasting has in the last few years appointed three different committees to look at TAM ratings. The Competition Commission of India is breathing down its neck. Ratings - just like box-office revenues or newspaper circulation - are not the government's business; media policy and Prasar Bharati are. Why not use the Rs 1,500-1,800 crore of taxpayer money spent on Doordarshan to make it a world-class news broadcaster a la BBC? Or get the finance ministry to even out entertainment tax across the country? Here is an even better one: why not give infrastructure status to the building of film theatres and concert revenues? That would incentivise their construction in big- and small-town India. What about cracking down on political ownership of the media or paid news?
Here is a ministry that is scuttling its own efforts at digitisation by forcing the implementation of the 12-minute rule before digitisation is through. It will result in silencing scores of small, independent channels and networks and killing variety (see "Gone in twelve minutes", June 18, Business Standard).
Given the drama, the M&E industry today is a good representation of the Shakespearean tragedy playing out in the Indian economy.
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