Agreeing to a major demand by Prasar Bharati, the Broadcast Audience Research Council, a body set up to measure television ratings, has decided to release its rural viewership data from next week.
"With this, BARC India, which currently reports about 55 million households representing cable and satellite universe of 1 Lac plus, will expand its reach to 153.5 million TV households, representing all of India and all modes of signal. Of this, 77.5 million are urban TV households and 76 million are rural TV households," a statement released here.
It also added that BARC India, which had recently announced a joint venture with TAM Media to form a meter management company, is working on the dynamics of it and will soon announce its integration plan.
BARC India, which is a joint venture bringing together the three key stakeholders in television audience measurement - broadcasters, advertisers and media agencies, had been asked by the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati to release its rural viewership data as early as possible.
In a strong email to BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta, Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar had written that a system, where rural data was not released, was hurting the public broadcaster.
"With the board giving us the go ahead to release the rural data, one will see 'What India Watches'. We will be releasing the data starting week 41," Dasgupta said.
