MUMBAI: In a smart move that could lead to further enhancing of its credibility and importance, Broadcast Audience Research Council India (BARC India) has exhorted Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to “empower” it to be the uniform measurer of audience and other data related to TV, and OTT and digital platforms.
“BARC, which provides significant granular measurement data on television, if empowered by this Hon’ble authority, shall provide unbiased and accurate measurement data on contents broadcasted, streamed, re-transmitted, downloaded and shared in OTT platforms. The outcome of the above will lead to one single robust measurement report for television, OTT and digital platforms,” the Indian measurement organisation has said in its submission on TRAI’s consultation paper on regulatory framework for OTT communication services.
Interestingly, while BARC India’s commitment to roll out digital media measurement services Ekam is a work in progress, the present TRAI consultation paper is more focussed on OTT voice or communications services like WhatsApp, Facebook’s Messenger and similar Indian products like Hike. However, it must be made clear here that many of the over 80 submissions from diverse stakeholders, including big TV companies like Star India and Zee, do dwell on video OTT and possibilities relating to regulations.
Quoting from the Mobile Eco-system and Ad-sizing Report 2018 that highlights India has 250 million registered online video viewers, 100 million OTT viewers and that viewing of video content increased by 75 per cent in recent times, BARC India drives home the point if the contents streamed, viewed, retransmitted and downloaded on OTT services “are measured and rated” by it, “more transparency in the digital eco-system” would follow.
Highlighting the many strengths of the system and technology that the organisation presently employs and deploys, BARC India has submitted: “The OTT platforms prevail in the mobile and virtual worlds, which allow advertisers to easily and efficiently target well-defined groups or even individual consumers across various mediums...Hence, it is imminent to regulate, analyse and derive audience measurement system on OTT platforms.”
Although several global agencies like comScore, Nielsen, App Annie and SimilarWeb provide third-party analytics on OTT platforms, the Indian industry lacks a credible and neutral measurement agency, it has been contended. As digital ad spends increase gradually, proper data analytics will offer additional opportunity to advertisers and clients to compare the effectiveness of media spends amongst various distribution platforms.
BARC India, which has successfully set up a transparent, accurate, and inclusive TV audience measurement system that’s built upon a robust and future-ready technology backbone, while strengthening its case to measure and analyse the digital realm, has added the “big data and insights” generated by it presently powers “efficient media spends and content decisions” in a highly dynamic and growing television sector of India.
With a panel that is currently being scaled up to 180,000 individuals, BARC India is also the largest measurement company of its kind in the world.
