MUMBAI: Television news broadcasters want ratings data weighing their performances to halt for a longer period of time as many of them negotiate to seal carriage deals with cable TV operators on their digital networks.

Living with something that has been a constant shadow of his life for years, the chief executive officer of a leading news organisation says that the weekly ratings released by TAM Media Research would not reflect an actual picture at this stage when their channels are yet to settle on digital cable TV.

?Several news broadcasters are yet to sign their carriage deals. Since the placement of the channels on the digital cable networks are not fixed and the EPG (electronic programme guide) is also not finalised, it will be unfair to have ratings during this period. There is a ?pick up? issue and for niche and news genres the margin of error in capturing true ratings can be wild,? says the executive on condition of anonymity.

Pouring their energies into persuading the government, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has managed to defer the release of ratings data for at least a few days. The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has called for a meeting, likely to be held on Friday, between the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the NBA, Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA).

TAM, India?s sole TV audience measurement agency, was supposed to report on 19 December the data for the last nine weeks in a digitised environment. This would have for the first time captured the viewing trends after the four metros went cable digital on 1 November, something which the media agencies have been particularly waiting for as they decide on distributing advertising spends for their clients.

News broadcasters fear the ratings would go against them in this fluid situation when many of them have not sorted out the distribution of their channels and the set-top box (STB) deployment has behaved erratically in the four metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai that fell under digitisation in the first phase.

?Even seeding the STBs took time. It may have picked up faster in Delhi and Mumbai, but Kolkata was nowhere in the scene in the initial days. Chennai is still bad. And ideally the EPG should have been in place by 1 November. The data can be accurate when things stabilise first,? says a senior executive working in a TV news outfit.

Kolkata has made progress and the I&B ministry has cracked the whip for switching off of all analogue television signals in the West Bengal state capital by 27 December. Chennai is the only city still to go digital as the Madras High Court is hearing a petition filed by associations of cable operators. The court has scheduled a hearing in the last week of this month.

Another issue of worry is that while some news broadcasters (particularly those who are part of larger networks who have entertainment channels in their product portfolio) have concluded their carriage deals, the others who are still negotiating with the multi-system operators (MSOs) will be under tremendous pressure if the ratings data steps out of the doorstep of TAM.

?There is still an imbalance for those whose carriage deals are pending. For the news genre which has a small share in the overall TV viewing universe, this state of flux can be very harmful,? says the head of distribution at a news company who is yet to finalise carriage deals with some MSOs.

Already reeling under pressure to up their revenues, news broadcasters do not want media agencies to further dictate terms. ?We need more time for things to settle,? says the CEO of a news network.

There is a bigger worry for the TV news outlets. For correcting their business models, they need their ballooning carriage payouts to shrink. They fear that the "pre-mature" release of ratings data at this stage will reduce their bargaining power with the MSOs they are in discussions with for fixing the carriage amounts.

With all these anxieties in mind, it is no surprise that news broadcasters have found new energy in their campaign against the immediate release of ratings data by TAM. But it remains to be seen how long the broadcasting community will unite to stick to this common purpose. Entertainment networks, who spend big budgets on their programming, will need to know how their shows have been accepted among their audiences and, more importantly, they need to tell this to the media agencies for getting the right ad rates.

?The way out is to allow ratings data to flow in across other genres except news. At least for some more time,? says a news channel ad sales executive.

MUMBAI: After a lull, the battle between broadcasters and TAM has resumed with public broadcaster Prasar Bharati moving Competition Commission of India against the audience measurement agency for anti-competitive practices.

The pubcaster had filed the complaint against TAM on Friday alleging that the ratings agency has been using its dominant position in audience measurement by excluding markets where Doordarshan channels have strong presence.

The complaint was filed under section 4 of the Competition Act 2002, which pertains to abuse of dominant position by a market player.

"On Friday (November 16) we received information from Prasar Bharati alleging anti-competitive practice by TAM. We will consider the matter through the week and if prima facie it makes a case, we will ask the Director General (Investigations) to probe the allegations," newswire PTI quotes a senior CCI official as saying.

Prasar Bharati has alleged that TAM has installed peoplemeters in 8,000 homes and only covers towns and cities with 100,000 plus population, which keeps keeps rural as well as smaller towns out of audience measurement.

The pubcaster had decided to move the CCI after its board meeting in September. Prasar Bharati officials feel that the organisation should claim damages from the ratings agency due to defects in its rating system.

Earlier, the news broadcaster NDTV filed in July a law suit against Nielsen and Kantar Media, which jointly own Tam India, for manipulation of viewership data. NDTV has demanded $810 million as compensation for the loss in revenues it has suffered over the years and $580 million in penalty for negligence by Nielsen and Kantar officials.

Ever since NDTV has filed the lawsuit, calls for setting up Broadcast Audience Research Council (Barc) has grown louder with the broadcasters being in the forefront of the demand.

The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and Indian Society of Advertisers (ISA) have held several meetings on how to roll out Barc. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) has also asked the industry to speed up the existence of Barc.