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.

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.