25 May 11: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has formed a committee called ‘Amit Mitra committee’, in January and has given wide range of suggestions to the television broadcast industry to revamp the existing TRP system which is considered as faulty and unrepresentative. The government has ordered the industry to set up the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) in a month and double the number of people meters and increase the sample size in 22 months.
Though the private stake holders are earning a whooping of Rs.10,000 crore on advertising, which is the main reason for riding TV ratings, they are not fixing the problem in the system. The reason why the government has decided to overhaul the TRP measurement system is, the stake holders feel that as broadcasters are chasing higher and higher TRP’s, the television content quality will be affected.
The TRP overhaul is estimated to cost Rs.600 crore, which mainly includes importing and maintaining the people meters. This cost has to be borne by private stakeholders. According to the government orders, BARC should consist of 12 member board, which should include broadcasters (6 private, 1 Doordarshan), advertisers (3 members) and advertising agencies (2 members including DAVP). The BARC has been given 30 days to set up a complaint redressal mechanism in compliant with Advertising Standards Council of India.
The BARC has to take up the responsibility of increasing the sample size from present level of around 8000 to 15,000 in the next two years. Then, it has to even take up the responsibility of doubling the number of people meters from 15,000 to 30,000, in between 2013 and 2016.
Under the revamped TRP system, the sample is needed to cover all the platforms and technologies such as terrestrial TV, digital and analog cable, DTH and IPTV. At present the people meters are installed only in larger towns in selected states, but now the government wants the new samples to represent urban and rural areas, small towns, Jammu & Kashmir and the North-East.
Source: Financial express