MUMBAI: The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India has renamed its viewership measurement metric - Rat'000 as Impressions'000 with effect from 14 January.

The data for Week 1, 2016 is released and the until now metric - Rat'000s will be referred to as Impressions '000s. 

The decision to usher under this new terminology in the New Year has been taken to avoid confusion in the marketplace and as BARC India gears up for its digital measurement initiative.

However, neither does the new terminology imply any change in the way television viewership is measured nor will the introduction of Impressions'000 have any impact on past data BARC India has released so far. 

Commenting on the new terminology, BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta said, “We are preparing for the future. When we get into digital measurement, viewership will be measured in Impressions and in order to maintain uniformity and avoid confusion, we decided to rename Ratings '000s to Impressions '000s.”