MUMBAI: The joint venture inked last year between television viewership ratings bodies Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) India and TAM Media for a meter management company has been christened Meterology Data Pvt Ltd (MDL).
The new entity will commence its operations in the next couple of weeks as TAM exits TV viewership measurement business effective 29 February, 2016.
BARC India will have full management control with a 51 per cent stake in MDL, while TAM India – which includes Nielsen and Kantar – will have a 49 per cent stake.
As a part of the new system, all TAM India meters will be re-deployed in panel homes selected by BARC India’s sample design. This joint venture will help BARC India in growing its sample size to 34,000 meters covering all of India.
MDL’s role will be to run and manage the meter operations and supplying raw data to BARC India. TV viewership data will be computed and disseminated through BMW (BARC India Media Workstation). MDL will manage the panel households and will also be responsible for future TV panel expansions.
The Spot Monitoring and Channel Monitoring data will be exclusively sold by BARC India to broadcasters, agencies, advertisers and others.
“The industry was eagerly waiting for this merger to be completed from the time we announced it in August last year. We are happy to state that the joint venture company is complete and all set to kick-off operations,” said BARC India CEO Partho Dasgupta.
Kantar CEO Eric Salama added, “We will work closely with BARC to ensure a good outcome for the industry and our joint clients. We have worked productively with BARC to get here and under the circumstances, have agreed a good way forward for everyone concerned.”
“We are happy to collaborate with BARC India. The coming together of BARC India and TAM India has only strengthened the Indian broadcast industry, as they will now be getting viewership trends from a larger panel size,” said Nielsen MD Prashant Singh.
Up to this point, BARC India and TAM India, both have been generating and reporting TV viewership data individually to the industry. Now, with the completion of this joint venture, BARC India will be the single provider of TV viewership data.
TAM Media Research CEO LV Krishnan opined, “I am very happy to see that the JV has finally taken shape. What is even more heartening is that TAM India's current 12,000 meters, which was built and constructed tirelessly over the last 15 years will get combined to give BARC India a larger and robust TV panel sample base for the industry. We will do our best in providing our expertise to MDL. Meanwhile, TAM India will continue focusing its efforts towards value adding the industry through constant enhancements of its existing businesses."
Meanwhile, TAM India will continue providing services like AdEx of TV, Print & Radio AdEx, Daily & Weekly Sales Index Reports, Bollywood & Music Monitoring Dashboards; Audience Measurement in Radio (RAM); Sports Sponsorship ROI Measurement (TAM Sports) and PR Measurement data & Audit services (Eikona) to its clients.
