<div>Broadcasters all over the world are often concerned about television ratings on account of its nexus with advertisement revenues. In India television rating system has been often reproached for not being transparent, accountable and representative of the actual viewership. Recently, Broadcasting Corporation of India (BCI), a government company which operates Doordarshan and All India Radio (both of which are free to air terrestrial broadcasts having vast reach particularly in rural India), filed an information with Competition Commission of India (India's anti-trust regulator) against TAM Media Research Private Limited (TAM), a joint venture between Neilsen (India) Private Limited and Kantar Market Research, which runs the most significant television viewership measurement firm in India. The Competition Commission of India has accepted the contentions of BCI on a <em>prima facie</em> basis and has referred the matter to its Director General to conduct further investigation.<br /><br />As an informant, BCI alleged that TAM has a dominant position with respect to measurement of viewership and has abused its dominant position. The allegations against TAM are manifold, including (i) inadequate sample size of 8150 homes, which represents a population size of 150-200 million television households; (ii) samples not being representative of rural India; (iii) methodology of the process being unaudited; (iv) cross holdings between the rating agencies and the broadcasters, advertisers and the advertising agencies and therefore conflict of interest issues; and (v) ratings by one agency and therefore the issues related to credibility.<br /><br />The Competition Commission of India is not the only government agency which is concerned by the alleged defective television rating system in India. India's telecom regulator, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has also issued a consultation paper on "Guidelines/Accreditation Mechanism for Television Rating Agencies in India" (Consultation Paper) to address the issues linked to television rating system in India. Based on the comments/views that TRAI would receive from the stakeholders, TRAI would provide recommendations to Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) for laying down comprehensive guidelines for television rating system, to ensure transparency and accountability.<br /><br /><img width="200" vspace="8" hspace="8" height="200" align="right" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=e0676c65-f120-4987-98a1-609072547e10&groupId=222852&t=1371818317090" alt="" />The Indian television and broadcasting sector is slated for a tremendous growth, however, it is increasingly being felt that continuance with an inadequate television rating system will hamper the growth of the industry as all financial decisions are largely influenced by the television ratings. Accordingly, a pro-active approach by various government agencies is a welcome step.<br /><br />The issue of television rating systems in India is not new. In the past, vide recommendation dated August 19, 2008, TRAI had proposed to set up a Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), a self regulator, to commission market research and provide accurate television rating in a transparent and objective manner. The said recommendation was made in line of the United Kingdom, Broadcasters Audience Research Board (BARB) model to govern the rating system in India, and to recommend entry of a second rating agency in India. The BARC was recommended to be constituted out ofequal representations from Advertising Agencies Association of India, Indian Society of Advertisers and Indian Broadcasting Foundation. Further, it was recommended that the BARC would not undertake audience measurement directly and shall resort to an open, transparent and competitive bidding process for the various stages involved in the rating process; including establishment survey, panel design and equality control, recruiting and metering, data collection and processing, and audit.<br /><br />The Self-regulating system through BARC has failed to be operationalised till date and MIB made a reference to TRAI on August 31, 2012 expressing urgency in the matter and to recommend comprehensive guidelines to ensure fair completion, better standards and quality of services by television rating agencies.<br /><br />TRAI has, in the Consultation Paper, come up with two models for the rating system and each of the models has two components; i.e. the accreditation of the rating agencies and the ratings of the accredited agencies. The two models are based on whether the new rating system should be free from Government/regulator intervention or not. One view is that since the television ratings mainly affect the business decision of the advertisers and advertising agencies, it should be free from such interventions; the contrary view is that since the ratings largely affect the audiences and commercial interests of various stakeholders, there is a need for the rating systems are free from any bias and therefore the intervention is necessary. Irrespective of the model that may be followed, the Consultation Paper provides for certain minimum standards/guidelines and eligibility for accreditation of the agencies.<br /><br />The Consultation Paper also provides for guidelines regarding methodology of audience measurement, including manner of selection of households, panel size, secrecy of panel homes and privacy. It has been suggested that the selection process of the sample household for the measurement process should be random and every household in a particular area should have equal chance of being chosen. Further, in order to ensure transparency, the methodology for selection should be clearly obtainable from the website etc. As pointed out earlier, the panel size has been an issue with the current rating system. It has been recommended to increase the panel size by up to four times, cover rural areas and also cover multiple delivery platforms.<br /><br />Cross holding between rating agencies or between the rating agencies and broadcasters, advertisers, media agencies and advertising agencies would make the system biased. Therefore, the TRAI has recommended that (i) there should be no cross holdings between rating agencies and broadcasters, advertisers, media agencies and advertising agencies; (ii) no person shall have substantial stake in more than one rating agency; (iii) promoter company/ director of the rating agency cannot have stakes in broadcasters, advertisers, media agencies and advertising agencies. Competition in rating systems is another sensitive point. Current there is only one rating agency. There is surely a need to create more agencies so as to ensure an unbiased rating system.<br /><br />Continuance of the present ostensibly inadequate television rating system will hamper the growth of the television industry as several financial decisions, production of content and its scheduling are largely dependent on the television ratings, therefore a robust guidelines for television rating system, to ensure transparency and accountability is required. It needs to be seen if the present approach by the CCI or the TRAI would result in a transparent, reliable and robust television rating system or would meet the same fate as that of proposed BRAC.<br /><br /><em>Saurav Kumar, Principal Associate and Ambarish, Senior Associate at Amarchand & Mangaldas & Suresh A Shroff</em></div>
