NBF writes to MIB minister about BARC’s failure to address landing page issue

The News Broadcaster Federation (NBF) has written to Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Minister for Information & Broadcasting and Union Minister for Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India, expressing their disappointment with the Broadcast Audience Research Council’s (BARC) failure to address the landing page issue. 

In the letter, NBF wrote, “We write to you in face of the BARC’s failure to address the ongoing problematic matter of Landing Pages being measured by the viewership rating agency as true viewership, thereby skewing the final data. Despite multiple letters from multiple national and regional news channels, BARC has yet to initiate any course correction.”

The non-addressal of the Landing Page matter has compromised the whole measurement system, read the letter. 

Landing pages in ratings is a restrictive trade practice: The Government has repeatedly shown its commitment to building a merit-based level playing field. However, allowing Landing Pages to be a measure of viewership stops and prevents a fair competitive environment. The use of Landing Pages to alter viewership data is predatorV behaviour. lt is a purely restrictive trade practice that encourages exclusionary behaviour in the news industry. 

Authorises monolopolies & makes way for a corporate media: Landing Pages are being accounted for as viewership which mean the authorisation of monopolies in the news media. The brazen use of Landing Pages, bought at a price, to artificiallv amplifv viewership data of certain channels gives channels with deep pockets an anti-competitive advantage. lt is shocking that some news channels today get 84% of their viewership from just 2 states in lndia, because of Landing Pages. lt lays the foundation for all those corporates who also run news organisations to redirect their cash flow toward Landing Pages as a means to edge out other honest news players

It counters the Govt’,s commitment to & ideals of digitisation & transparency: At a time when the Honourable Government of lndia has been working towards ending monopolies and creating a level-playing field amidst the surging digitisation, this practice by BARC counters all efforts to democratise news media, provide a level playing field to all players - big and small- and ensure transparency in data sharing.

Democratic freedom of the press is being subverted: Freedom of the media is a bedrock of the lndian democratic system. The validation of monopolistic practices has the net effect of blocking and winding up other news channels that do not have the same monetary backing as the monopoly.

BARC has the capability to exclude landing pages from viewership, but is not: In thc past, BARC had included unfiltered outliers data from Landing Page for its ratings data, but had later decided to exclude it from viewership. Therefore, it is clear that BARC has both the ability and the precedent of filtering out Landing Page data while calculating viewership, but is still not doing so. ln fact, in the past, BARC had itself termed the use of landing pages as a "false exaggeration" of viewership.

NBF has requested the MIB minister to intervene in light of BARC's failure to address the present situation.