Prasar Bharati gets board approval to move CCI against TAM

NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati is planning to soon move the Competition Commission of India (CCI) against Television Audience Measurement (TAM) for not covering markets where pubcaster Doordarshan had a strong reach.

The Prasar Bharati Board which met here yesterday approved the draft of the petition prepared earlier by the pubcaster?s national broadcaster.

Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar said, "Doordarshan?s reach and viewership is its strength. Even when the television industry wants to reach more viewers, they acknowledge it like in the case of programmes like Satyamev Jayate. This reach should be reflected in the ratings."

Sircar had earlier told Indiantelevision.com that it was astonishing that TAM had been side-stepping Doordarshan, which has the largest reach terrestrially through local cable operators and around 20 per cent of the market through various DTH platforms.

Sircar said it was astonishing that TAM had never attempted to give the ratings of DD viewership despite its being the largest broadcaster and the fact that every platform has to mandatorily show its channels.

Earlier this month, Doordarshan Director General Tripurari Sharan told Indiantelevision.com that the final draft had been prepared and cleared by legal counsel.

The Prasar Bharati Board had taken up the matter in its meeting on 6 August and given the go-ahead to DD to proceed with the matter, and approved the draft yesterday.

The Ministry had written a letter to TAM and its international partner Nielsen earlier, wanting to know the steps taken to improve the television rating measurement system and ordering for a third party audit to be conducted with an increased sample size.

The Ministry had also written to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for suggestions on an accreditation mechanism for TV ratings in India to curb the monopoly and asked it to frame guidelines in context to cross holdings in companies that are involved in TV ratings system in India.

Trai had on 19 August 2008 issued Recommendations on the Policy Guidelines and Operational issues for Television Audience Measurement Television Rating Points (TRPs) suggesting Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), a suggestion which was later endorsed by the Amit Mitra Committee.

The action by Prasar Bharati comes on the heels of the case filed by NDTV in a New York court against The Nielsen Co and Kantar Media Research, equal partners in TAM Media, in this regard.