In a move to track proper television viewership ratings in the country, fair trade regulator Competition Commission of India (CCI) will come out with its final judgment soon on a complaint filed by public broadcaster Prasar Bharati against television rating firm TAM Media for alleged unfair trade practices on television rating points (TRPs) and television viewership ratings (TVRs), the CCI sources told The Pioneer.
TAM Media Research is a joint venture between Nielsen (India) Pvt ltd and Kantar Market Research which provides TRPs and TVRs to all television channels, while Prasar Bharati - the parent body that runs Doordarshan (DD) as well as All India Radio - falls under Information & Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry.
In fact, On March 5, 2013 the regulator had directed its investigation arm Director General (DG) to probe the complaint. Prasar Bharati had contended that TAM was owned and controlled by advertising agencies, thereby having a vested interest in generating data which suited its owners. The investigation has been ordered by the regulator after finding prima facie evidence of TAM violating competition norms.
When asked about the chance of winning, sources added, “We are hopeful that over three-year-old case will come to an end next month and the chances of wining the judgment could be 50:50 for both the parties as they have sufficient proofs to defend themselves. It is too early to predict the CCI verdict.”
In order to popularise DD programmes, which can fetch good revenues to the Government in the competitive environment, the Ministry is mulling auction of its prime-time slots soon after the regulator’s decision. When contacted about the CCI development on its complaint against TAM Media, an official in the I&B Ministry said, “We are waiting for the CCI order and we are hopeful that we will win the case after a long time. As our revenue is constantly falling due to its poor viewership despite having excellent reach Pan India, we also plan to auction all our prime-time slots if it goes in our favour. We expect good TRPs from TAM Media for which we can garner good revenues through the auction.”
Through the slot-auction, DD is expected to bring greater transparency in the programme-selection process. “We aim at increasing good viewership throughout the country, both rural and urban pockets in the country. I believe that a good viewership means a good TRPs, and good TRPs can fetch better transparency and generate more advertisements to augment our revenues,” the official said.
Recently, another official in the Ministry had also said, “We realise that the quality of programmes on DD is extremely poor. Any viewer who has the choice of other channels does not watch the national broadcaster anymore.”
The I&B Minister has reportedly asked Prasar Bharati - the parent body that runs DD as well as All India Radio - to change its revenue model to attract big producers who would otherwise turn to private general entertainment channels.
As far as the case is concerned, Prasar Bharati, which runs Doordarshan and All India Radio networks, filed the complaint in November 2012. It had said that as a result of the unfair practices adopted by TAM, its viewership was being largely under reported, thereby causing great financial loss besides affecting the reputation.
Within the television industry, about 34 per cent of revenue comes from advertisements where advertisers generally place their ads on various channels based on viewership as measured by TAM. For this purpose, TAM was using the electronic gadget ‘people meter’ connected to TV sets in selected sample households.
However, the CCI said that TAM had limited its surveys and viewers measurement only to the larger cities with a population of one lakh or more. “The sample size of 8,000 homes in a vast country such as India, with a population of more than 1.20 billion was also minuscule and misleading,” the CCI had said.
“In a country as vast as India with diverse culture, different languages, where the urban population was only 30 per cent and rural population about 70 per cent, not installing people meters in rural areas, prima facie, amounted to restricting use of technology of measuring viewer’s choice to the prejudice of customers in this case Doordarshan,” it had said.
The CCI had also said that providing people’s meter in rural areas amounted to discrimination to Doordarshan and other similar channels, if any, catering to the needs of the rural areas.