BARC needs to address allegations of tampering: R S Sharma
During a conversation with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now, the TRAI Chairman spoke about the concerns raised regarding BARC’s structure and neutrality
Expressing concerns raised by stakeholders regarding BARC, regarding its structure, neutrality and reliability of the existing rating system, TRAI Chairman R S Sharma has said that it necessitated the value of the existing TAM Media Research (an audience measurement analysis firm) and TRP in India.
During a conversation with Kailashnath Adhikari, MD, Governance Now, Sharma said that issues of panel expansion and panel tampering have been raised and require immediate attention as these can cause harm to the stability of TAM and television ratings.
“With advancement in technology, the rapid changes have given rise to new issues along with new values to explore, update and improve credibility of the TAM system. After due consultation process TRAI forwarded the recommendation of review of TAM to MIB (ministry of information and broadcasting) on April 20, 2020,” said the TRAI chairman during the live conversation with Kailashnath Adhikari.
Some important recommendations of TRAI include the need for structural reforms in BARC to mitigate conflict of interest, bring credibility, transparency and instill confidence among all stakeholders in the TV audience measurement rating system, create credible and accurate collection of data and encourage multiple data collection agencies. The competition between these multiple data collection and processing agencies would bring in new technologies, research, methodologies and methods of analysis and better ways to ensure data quality, he said.
Sharma also added that it was on TRAI’s recommendations that BARC was constituted and it is the sole provider of TV rating services on a commercial basis.
