MUMBAI: Everyone and everybody that indiantelevision.com journalists got in touch with today to get an update on the advertisers vs broadcasters faceoff had one word to say: "Nothing."

So we decided to label it as the day of nothing.

But after probing deeper, we got to know that both sides, the AAAI and ISA, and broadcasters have as collectives individually agreed upon the tradeoffs each one is willing partake of. And at a very high level (read a select group of stakeholders), representatives of all sides have broadly reached an agreement too. "Some of the the AAAI, ISA and the broadcaster members have agreed on certain points. However not everybody has not agreed. Now unless, they all buy into this proposed agreement, the agreement is not really an agreement," says a media observer close to the developments.

Did any official conversations take place between them today? "None really," says a really very senior advertising professional. ?Talks happened but on an informal level. We are all friends, after all."

Observers, going by historical precedent, expect some announcement to come tomorrow late Friday evening. "Over the past two months, major announcements have been made on weekends. It was last weekend when broadcasters announced that they were moving to monthly ratings, before that the unsubscribing announcements happened on Friday and Saturday. There is a pattern to this," says one of them. "It would be opportune for them to announce that they have all reached common ground."

Reports are that the IBF board is meeting tomorrow, but sources close to the IBF say that the meeting is not related to the monthly ratings and the proposals made by advertisers and agencies. Whether this source is bluffing or not will only become clearer by late tomorrow evening.

MUMBAI: It was a day which kept most media hacks on their feet: a day when we all expected some big news to break - that the broadcasters vs advertisers feud had been resolved. But through the day, despite calls to all our sources, very little was forthcoming.

However, a short while ago we got a breakthrough. One of our sources called up and told us about the gist of the discussions. ?There were four points that were put up,? he said. They are:

* Monthly reporting of channel viewership vs weekly reporting

* Viewership in absolute numbers vs percentage share

* Exclusion of niche channels such as Star World from reporting totally.

* Exclusion of news channels from reporting totally or only reporting them on a monthly basis.

The idea was that the Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) and the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) speak to each other and come up with what is agreeable to all of them ? and would be agreeable to broadcasters ? on the above issues. Which they did till post lunch.

Simultaneously, broadcasters were supposed to congregate and agree to what permutations and combinations would be OK with them on the above issues.

Which again they did.

By evening the three parties were supposed to speak to each other with the ISA and AAAI presenting their proposals to the broadcasters and vice-versa. If all things worked out, a framework would then be drawn up to roll out the agreement to industry and to media.

Says a senior broadcasting professional: "All I can confirm is that a lot of talk is happening between the parties involved. Things are beginning to happen but it is still at a very sensitive stage. The negotiation will take some time to take shape. So, we need to be patient and let the parties talk."

Adds Set Max EVP and business head Neeraj Vyas, "A lot of discussions are taking place on the issue. Even as we speak, there are calls being made and in the next 48 hours or so there will be sanity. Everybody has to coexist. There will be a consensus. We depend on them and they depend on us. TV is an important medium for most brands. Everybody understands that. We play a big role in the way their products move. So I am sure there will be a consensus between the two bodies."

"You will see a resolution soon," agrees Multiscreen Media COO NP Singh. But he is not willing to commit on the timeframe.

Industry sources dismissed reports in a leading financial daily that broadcasters had agreed to go back to weekly ratings. "There is still some ground to be covered," they said. "The publication jumped the gun."

This was at the time of writing at 7:25 pm on 17 July 2013.