TRPs give way to Television Viewership in Thousands (TVTs)

July 31, 2013

Broadcasters, advertisers, ad agencies and Television Audience Measurement (TAM) Media Research — the sole agency which measures viewership, negotiated in terms of Television viewership. Television viewership will now be measured not on the basis of points but on absolute numbers with Television Rating Points (TRPs) giving way to Television Viewership in Thousands (TVTs).

Earlier Big television networks planned to move out of the Television Audience Measurement (TAM) system and either unsubscribe or not renewing their subscriptions. After that repetitive negotiations led to a deal between big networks and TAM on providing data on a monthly basis.

What are the issues regarding Television Audience Measurement (TAM) rating system?

As per Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) problems with the TAM system included:

A non-transparent methodology
Limited sample size
Cross-holdings b/w rating agencies and broadcasters and advertising agencies
Lack of a credible complaint mechanism.

Why these new Viewership Norms as per Television Viewership in Thousands (TVTs)?

In order to address the complaints of television networks that stated TRPs measured in relative terms in points do not accurately present the growth in viewership. TVTs will be the sole measuring standard in the public domain. TVT rolling average will be provided every week. This is statistically more stable data. But for internal evaluation, the percentage of television viewership rating weekly will be provided to advertisers and agencies. All future changes in audience measurement will be made based on inputs by a joint technical committee of the industry body, the Broadcasting Audience Research Council.

About Television Audience Measurement (TAM) :

TAM Media Research is one of the two Television Audience Measurement analysis firms of India (the other being aMap). Appointed by the Joint Industry stakeholders of Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA), Indian Broadcast Foundation (IBF) and Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) in 1998, the reason for being for TAM is to be the central Industry provider of Media and Consumer Insights to the various stakeholders of the Indian Media and Entertainment Industry – Advertisers & Marketers, Media Owners, Media Agencies and the Academia.

Besides measuring TV Viewership, since the year 2000, TAM has been monitoring Advertising Expenditure of various Advertisers, Brands and Product Categories across Television Channels, Print & Radio through its division AdEx India.

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